


Tinker Trickster Hamster Spy

by XiuChen4Ever



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Clockpunk, Elves, Fluff, Found Family, M/M, Romance, Smut, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2020-11-24 15:27:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20909882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XiuChen4Ever/pseuds/XiuChen4Ever
Summary: Summary: Jongdae wasn’t looking to get a pet.  Then again, one doesn’t say no to the Three Sisters when they make a “suggestion.”





	1. The Man with the Golden Hamster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hikariisjaejj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikariisjaejj/gifts).

> Written for EXOMONSTERFEST 2019, prompt T74. 
> 
> Dear prompter, I deviated from your prompt a bit but I hope the essential elements are still there. Your prompt grabbed my attention immediately--An image of bulging cheek pouches popped into my head and the main characters were set. The plot grew around them and isn't truly what I originally expected but I really like how it turned out nonetheless and I hope you do, too!
> 
> ⚙️🐹⚙️

⚙️🐹⚙️

In a cute little pet shop on the outskirts of a big modern city, a beautiful woman of indeterminate age wipes down the glass-topped sales counter with disinfectant spray. She takes her role as steward for the creatures she purveys very seriously, and she will not tolerate any spreading of potential disease, magical or mundane.

She looks up at a sudden shout from outside, thick black ponytail falling over her shoulder. Through the plate glass window at the front of the shop, she sees a short, sharp-featured young man with gently pointed ears scurry past followed closely by a tall, stern-faced lad with grayish skin.

“Unnie!” she calls. “ChenChen’s at it again.”

Another woman steps through the beaded curtain that separates the sales floor from the back room. She’s shorter than the woman at the counter and more finely built but no less beautiful. The newcomer huffs as the pair run back past the window, the taller man attempting to grab the shorter one who evades the threat with a twist of his slim waist. 

“Ugh,” she says, shaking her head in dismay and causing her wavy brown hair to brush against her slender shoulders. “Something really must be done about that boy.”

“It’s so sad,” the woman at the counter sighs. “He has so much potential. Should we give him a little push?”

The shorter woman nods. She turns over her shoulder and calls out toward the beaded curtain.

“Hey, Fany!”

Another beautiful woman with bouncy blonde hair pokes her head out between the strands of beads.

“We think it’s time to give our Chenny a nudge,” the short woman says. “Is our little refugee stable enough?”

The blonde’s eyes curve into crescents. “Oh, good!” she cheers. “Chen definitely needs it, and our little cutie is definitely ready.”

The petite woman turns to the one at the counter with a happy nod. “Seohyunnie, you may have the pleasure.”

⚙️🐹⚙️

Jongdae almost runs right into the door of Toes, Tails, & Snouts, the dubiously-named pet shop that has occupied this particular corner for generations. The plate glass flies open in front of him as he’s pelting down the sidewalk ahead of his favorite test subject. Somehow he stops in time, and somehow Kris doesn’t strangle him. Instead, Kris blushes and bows and apologizes and slinks away with many a backward glance as Miss Seohyun winks and waves at him.

At the same time, Miss Taeyeon ushers Jongdae inside with more strength than a woman that tiny should possess, giving him a sweet smile that Jongdae already knows means he’s in trouble.

“Chenny!” Miss Tiffany coos, leaning on the sales counter and giving him her best eye-smile. “We haven’t seen you in so long!”

Jongdae feels his face heat. These three women are the only ones that use the name his father gave him instead of the one his mother bestowed. Everyone else knows better—Jongdae made very sure of that.

“I’ve been busy,” he answers with a polite bow and a smile he hopes excuses his long absence. He can’t even remember the last time he stepped inside their shop.

It feels like a lifetime ago that young Jongdae had stopped by after school nearly every day to gawp at all the amazing options the Three Sisters had available. He could never decide which variety he wanted most, equally able to imagine himself with a winged-kitten-like pyewacket or a glossy singing snake. He couldn’t wait for the day when his father would bring him to choose and Awaken his first bonded companion once Jongdae became a novitiate of the Druidic Circle his elven parent had proudly founded a century before Jongdae’s birth. 

Jongdae hadn’t cared that much about plants and healing and the cycles of the moon but he’d spent countless hours daydreaming about all the glorious adventures he and his magnificent companion would have together. Their bond would be the strongest ever and they’d be able to do so many amazing things. They’d love each other forever and be together constantly. 

He’d been such a soft, sensitive child.

Now Jongdae is a hard, stoic adult who has entirely different goals. An exotic pet won’t help him manufacture his future. Gears and springs and enchanted bearings will.

“You’ve been busy causing trouble,” Miss Seohyun admonishes, striding over with hands on hips. “You’re going to hurt someone someday.”

“My field tests are harmless,” Jongdae dismisses. He’s got to try out his prototypes somehow—may as well use the most amusing method. And it’s not like he has any  _ volunteers. _

“Let me rephrase:  _ You’re  _ going to get hurt someday when one of your victims has enough of humiliation.”

“I know how to pick my subjects,” Jongdae states with confidence. 

That lumbering quarter-giant would never be able to catch him, and he keeps calling Jongdae  _ short. _ Jongdae is  _ not _ short, he’s just a half-elf, and elves are dainty, delicate little things. Given his heritage, Jongdae is downright  _ tall _ at 173 centimeters.

“Hmm,” Miss Taeyeon says, giving Jongdae one of those noises that he knows means “I disagree but you’re too stubborn to make further discussion worthwhile.” As a schoolboy, he’d gotten that noise a lot.

“I need you to do me a favor,” she continues. “This is our busy season coming up what with all the new Academy students needing their first-year supplies.”

She looks up at him with enchanting eyes and Jongdae can do nothing to resist the gentle tug on his elbow leading him to the back room.

“I’ve got something of a charity case on my hands and I’m afraid I won’t have enough time to give him the care he needs,” she continues, leading him past generously-sized enclosures containing winged baby rabbits and litters of too-curious rats, tanks of oddly-colored tadpoles and incubators full of unusual eggs.

“I don’t know anything about animals that aren’t clockwork,” Jongdae protests.

“I’ll provide you with an instruction scroll,” Miss Taeyeon dismisses. “Poor little Cuddles won’t give you any trouble, anyway.”

“Cuddles?” Jongdae asks as they stop in front of a large wire cage containing what appears to be nothing at first. 

“Tiffany named him—you know how she is.” Miss Taeyeon smiles fondly. “He is rather cute for a common golden hamster, though. It suits him well enough.” 

She makes a high-pitched little squeak and the fluffy paper bedding shifts, sending brightly-colored clumps sliding away from what is eventually revealed to be a tiny, wiggly nose. After only a few seconds of sniffing the air, the nose disappears back into the rainbow fluff.

“You can see he’s not feeling well,” Miss Taeyeon frowns. “He barely eats as it is so we keep him alone so no one else can hog the food. I’ve made an elixir for him that should help him regain his strength but it needs to be given three times per day and I’m afraid we’ll be too busy to stay on schedule.”

She produces a crystal vial full of a shimmering purple liquid. “He only needs three drops per dose, and he likes the taste.” 

Miss Taeyeon pulls the stopper from the bottle, squeezing the rubber bulb to aspirate some of the liquid into the attached dropper. Unlatching a small door in the wire wall, she reaches inside the enclosure, pointing the dropper’s angled tip toward the corner from which the nose had appeared.

There’s no reaction at first. Then there’s a rustle, and the tiny wiggly nose pushes from the bedding enough to reveal the attached tiny mouth, into which Miss Taeyeon carefully drips three shimmering purple drops.

“It won’t hurt him to get an extra drop or two if you accidentally squeeze too hard,” she assures him as she withdraws her arm. “But he won’t get any additional benefit, and I’ll have to make more elixir that much sooner, so do try your best to be accurate.”

“I see.” Jongdae looks back at the once-again undisturbed surface of the candy-colored bedding. “So, you want me to come over three times a day and give him his medicine?”

Miss Taeyeon shakes her head. “I need you to take him home with you, Chenny. He needs one-on-one attention to ensure he recovers well, and I also have three litters of hamstergriffs hatching soon and I’ll really need the space.”

“This is a ridiculously huge enclosure,” Jongdae comments. 

It’s about sixty centimeters square and forty centimeters tall, with ladders and ledges running up the wire sides. There’s a pink plastic exercise wheel affixed to one wall, a translucent blue water bottle poking through the wires, and a teal green ceramic dish full of small brownish food pellets and a few kernels of dried maize. There’s also an odd little tray in the corner farthest from the food that has smaller papery pellets in it.

Miss Taeyeon gives Jongdae a look. “Chenny, we do not sacrifice creature comfort for potential profit. Their lives are as fulfilling as we can possibly provide, and that means plenty of room, a healthy diet, regular exercise and socialization, proper medical attention—”

“Okay, okay,” Jongdae says, raising his hands in appeasement. “But shouldn’t he have a little house or something? What’s that in the corner?”

The petite woman shakes her head. “He prefers to burrow around in the bedding. A house would just get in his way. And that’s his litter tray—hamsters can be trained to make most of their waste in the same spot, making it easier to keep his enclosure clean and fresh.”

“I didn’t know they were that smart,” Jongdae says, more than a little impressed.

“It’s a natural instinct for many animals not to soil their den—predators would be attracted to the scent and nobody wants to get eaten,” Miss Taeyeon explains. She leans against Jongdae’s shoulder, looking up at him with that mesmerizing gaze. “You’ll take him, won’t you, Chenny? The shop will provide all the supplies you’ll need—food, bedding, care instructions, even treats and toys.” She bats her lashes appealingly, evidently unashamed to borrow a page from Miss Tiffany’s book.

Jongdae sighs. “I’m not leaving here without him, am I?”

“Nope,” Miss Taeyeon confirms, all brisk business once again. “Tiffany’s already filling a bag with supplies and Seohyunnie will help you carry everything home and get Cuddles settled in.”

“Yes, Noona,” Jongdae acquiesces. 

It’s the height of irony that he’s finally taking home a creature from Toes, Tails, and Snouts and it’s the least exotic pet there is—just an ordinary golden hamster.

⚙️🐹⚙️

It’s not until nightfall that Jongdae finally sees more than a tiny wiggly nose. He’d dutifully administered three drops of the elixir about half an hour ago before sitting down at his cluttered desk to work on some schematics. He needs to come up with something that will impress the board members of the Tinkers’ Guild so they’ll allow him membership without a patron. Then he’ll be able to open up a licensed shop, selling his clockwork creations to the public.

It doesn't matter to Jongdae that this is the digital age. Hipsters love birds and gears and Jongdae can make one out of the other. He can also make clever little gadgets to sign one's name repeatedly on holiday cards and perpetual motion rockers to trick a certain popular phone game into believing the user has walked ten kilometers overnight.

Jongdae may be a homebody but that doesn't mean he's out of touch with pop culture and hot trends. The mechanisms he'll sell in his future little shop will be both whimsical and practical and he's sure his creations will sell as fast as he can make them. Jongdae may be a failure of an elf and a disappointment to his father, but he’s his mother’s son as well. Humans may not be as magically inclined nor as in touch with nature, but they are adaptable and ambitious and Jongdae is going to prove it by designing something novel. Something amazing.

He’s frowning down at his latest drawing when he hears it—a tiny rustle. Moving only his eyes, he looks up at the cage he’d cleared a space for on one end of his largest worktable. There are several more rustles and cautious nose-exposures before the hamster’s entire head becomes visible.

Despite being a so-called “golden” hamster, the little guy’s fur is a creamy sort of orange, setting off big dark eyes and round, silver-gray ears. Cuddles hesitates for another moment, then emerges fully, revealing a too-skinny body with a band of white fur around his midsection. He scurries over to his food dish and starts shoving things into his mouth with his tiny front paws, choosing the sunflower seeds and maize kernels over the more-nutritious pelleted food just as the care instructions warned. 

Miss Taeyeon had written that for the moment eating anything is better than nothing but that as his health improves Jongdae needs to steer him away from the “junk food.” Jongdae knows what it’s like to be ill and not really feel like eating much, so he’d carefully laid out the most tempting tidbits to entice the tiny patient.

The prize of the day is a whole peanut still in the shell, and Jongdae can’t hold back a snort of amusement when Cuddles manages to shove the entire thing into one of his cheek pouches, making his face bulge ridiculously on that side.

Cuddles freezes, then lifts up on his hind legs, sniffing the air. He looks straight at Jongdae, then burrows back beneath the fluff, disappearing from sight once again.

Suppressing a sigh of disappointment, Jongdae returns his attention to the troublesome drawing. It’s kind of ridiculous to care so much about a tiny rodent’s regard, but it’s not like Jongdae has friends lining up at the door. 

Then again, it’s not like Jongdae  _ wants  _ anyone lining up at his door. People are distracting. People have  _ expectations. _ It’s much better to keep to himself unless he needs test subjects for his prototypes.

At least he’s seen his little charge enough to be certain he’s alright. He smiles at the memory of the hamster’s peanut-filled cheek. He really is rather cute.

⚙️🐹⚙️

The next few days are much the same, with Cuddles willingly taking his medicine but otherwise hiding from Jongdae as much as possible. In an effort to make the cute little guy feel more at ease (and fatten him up a bit), Jongdae experiments with offering him various treats each day. He speaks softly as he fills the dish and checks the water, trying to associate his voice with yummies and not fear.

He learns that Cuddles likes berries a lot but blueberries in particular seem to be his favorite. It’s hilarious to watch him add a blueberry to each cheek pouch along with the seeds and the occasional pellet. The hamster always tries to load his pouches evenly when possible, giving himself huge but balanced cheeks when he scurries back into his pile of fluffy bedding.

He’s absolutely fastidious about using his litter tray, too, although he never does so when Jongdae is watching. It amuses the human that the little guy seems so modest but it’s probably just an extension of not really wanting Jongdae to see him at all. Still, it makes it really easy to clean out the small tray each day instead of having to change out all the colorful bedding—evidently called “Fairy Fluff” according to the package provided by TT&S. 

Jongdae’s childhood self would be appalled that his new pet doesn’t have fluttery iridescent wings like the hamsprites or the front half of a budgerigar like the hamstergriffs. He’s even one of the most common colors for a golden hamster, something the internet informed him is called “banded cream.” He doesn’t have long fur like a teddy bear or curly fur like a rex. Cuddles is about as basic as a hamster can get.

But grown-up Jongdae finds himself growing rather attached. Common or not, he’s still adorable—Jongdae hadn’t known that a hamster’s nose is constantly wiggling like a rabbit’s, and he’s incredibly charmed whenever that nose protrudes from beneath the bedding. His dark eyes and gray ears contrast nicely with the apricot-colored fur, and the way he uses his little “hands” to pick things up and shove them in his face is totally coo-worthy.

Though he hadn’t inherited enough from his father’s side to earn the archdruid’s pride or approval, his elven blood does allow Jongdae to see in less light than a full-blooded human. For once his heritage actually proves useful to him—he can keep the lamps low and still catch glimpses of his little charge as he scurries out to cram raspberries and millet in his cheek pouches along with (thankfully) increasing amounts of the actually-nutritious pellets. 

Cuddles is eating more and more each day and is visibly less scrawny after a week in Jongdae’s care. He’s nowhere near his target weight of around a hundred and fifty grams but at least he’s making progress. The hamster is more active too, even if Jongdae rarely gets to witness it. Jongdae has heard what must have been the exercise wheel spinning several times though it’s always unoccupied when he enters his workshop.

Jongdae’s been a loner since it had become painfully obvious his future wasn’t going to align with that of his elven peers and he’s basically become a hermit since moving out on his own. It’s a pleasant sort of strange to have company while he sits at his drafting table all day and designs and draws, redesigns and redraws, even if he can’t usually see his tiny companion. 

Just knowing Cuddles is there, that the hamster is noticeably improving thanks to Jongdae’s efforts is enough to cause warmth to wash over him whenever he sits back to rest his eyes and sees the empty-looking cage. It’s almost like the feeling of triumph when a mechanism he’s been working on finally functions as intended. But it’s not as bright a sensation—this version is softer, fuzzier, rather like the hamster himself when compared to the metallic devices that usually monopolize the tinker’s thoughts.

But Jongdae’s attention is rather split these days, making it take longer to draw out the next set of modifications for his latest prototype. The machine had performed well, the telescoping arm extending smoothly to poke Kris in the bum without unbalancing, and it had zipped away easily afterwords on the newly-upgraded drivetrain.

He’s decided working on a pincer arm would be the next challenge, perhaps with the telescoping arm extending the opposite direction as a counterweight. But instead of drawing out the shape of the claw or calculating the gear ratios needed to operate it, Jongdae often finds himself sketching hamster-inspired chassis or devising mechanisms to wiggle a mechanical nose.

He always snorts and shakes his head whenever he realizes his focus has drifted yet again. He’s never thought of himself as lonely before, but he must be more deprived of socialization than he thought. It’s a bit ridiculous for a grown man to be this obsessed with an animal even more reclusive than himself.

⚙️🐹⚙️

Things only get worse when Jongdae moves from drawing schematics and projections at his drafting table to assembling prototypes at the work table where the hamster’s cage rests. He tries to sit as far away from the enclosure as possible but it seems that the little guy can feel the vibrations of Jongdae’s efforts through the tabletop.

Jongdae feels like the worst hamster-sitter ever when he sees even less of Cuddles than before. But there’s nowhere else in his modest apartment to place such a large enclosure besides the floor and that’s apparently forbidden due to possible drafts making the underweight hamster too cold. So he just tries to be as gentle as possible as he fits together the gears, cogs, and springs of the clockworks that power his clever little machines.

One day when he’s muttering expletives at the uncooperative assembly in front of him, he feels the distinct sense of being watched. When he looks up, a creamy head ducks back into the bedding. Jongdae smiles, practically hearing the nonchalant whistling of the definitely-not-watching creature. Happy to at least be entertaining his ward even if he’s not making any progress, Jongdae returns to his task, subtly flicking his eyes up to the enclosure from time to time to catch his observer in the act. Cuddles always hides as soon as he realizes Jongdae’s seen him, but he always pokes his head back out as soon as the tinker’s attention is elsewhere.

It makes Jongdae hum happily through what would otherwise have been a wholly frustrating afternoon.

The trend continues the following day with proof that the little rodent is more than just clever enough to use a litter tray. Overnight he’d piled up a mountain of fluff in the corner of the cage closest to Jongdae, enabling him to burrow inside and keep himself almost completely covered as he spies on the tinker. He installs himself in his little fort as soon as Jongdae sits down to work, dark eyes and the ever-wiggling nose the only giveaway that he’s being closely supervised.

Cuddles continues to increase in weight and boldness over the next two weeks to the point where he starts darting for the freshly-filled food dish as soon as Jongdae shuts the cage door after delivering it, eager to inspect what the human has brought for him each day. And he forsakes his fort to watch Jongdae work from one of the built-in balconies, evidently able to see better from that angle.

One day the hamster seems a little agitated, scurrying back and forth on his perch without settling into his usual observation position (on his haunches, with both front paws gripping the wire bars adorably).

“What’s your deal today?” Jongdae asks him, frowning when the question only increases the hamster’s pacing. 

He looks down at his work and realizes that he’s assembling ultra-tiny cogs with a loupe and forceps—the hamster probably can’t actually see what he’s doing from all the way over there.

Jongdae offers the curious creature a half-smile. “Sorry, little guy. I’d let you watch from up close but I don’t want you loose in this cluttered place. I’d never find you, and then Miss Taeyeon would have  _ me _ in a cage.”

The hamster sits very still, nose and whiskers the only thing still twitching.

Jongdae lifts a brow. “Even if I believed you’re staying put because of my words and not random hamster impulses, I don’t want to risk you shoving any of these tiny pieces in those pouches of yours.”

The hamster’s dark eyes take on what can only be described as a pleading look.

Shaking his head at his susceptibility to the entirely unintentional manipulations of a small animal, Jongdae sets down his work and hunts for the clear plastic ball that’s meant to keep the hamster from getting into small places when he’s running around on the floor. He grabs a peanut and drops it inside, then unlatches the enclosure door and offers the mouth of the ball up to the opening.

“Come on, then,” he invites.

And as if he understood, Cuddles climbs down from his balcony and hops into the ball, immediately claiming the peanut. By the time Jongdae’s secured the lid to the ball and set the plastic sphere atop a coil of wire to hold it steady and prevent the hamster from rolling off the table, Cuddles has one hugely-bulging cheek pouch and no peanut in sight.

Jongdae can only smile at the innocent-looking rodent as he returns to his task, now closely supervised by the hamster in front of him. 

Accustomed to spending most of his time entirely alone, Jongdae finds it uncomfortable to sit and work while being so closely watched, even if it’s by a creature doubtless attracted to the shiny brass and steel components rather than the work itself. So to make himself feel less awkward, he explains what he’s doing to his silent observer.

“See, this long coil here is the mainspring, and it stores the energy delivered by the winding key. It powers the escapement here, see, and that will turn the main cog which in turn powers all the others.”

Cuddles watches him solemnly throughout this explanation, and when Jongdae leans back with a sigh to grab an energy bar, the hamster disgorges the peanut from his cheek and munches on it, almost as if they’re having lunch together. He knows it’s entirely an illusion, but it’s still nice to have companionship. Especially adorable companionship provided by a little guy who holds his lunch in both front paws, nibbling away between using his tiny pink tongue to swipe crumbs off his whiskers.

They spend the rest of the afternoon in similar fashion as the morning, and to his delight Jongdae discovers that explaining out loud what he’s doing and where he’s running into trouble actually helps him work through his difficulties. He manages to assemble the entire mechanism by dinnertime, cheering and pressing a kiss to the surface of the hamster ball in gratitude.

“You’re an excellent assistant, Cuddles,” Jongdae coos. “Oh, but let’s weigh you while we have you out.”

Jongdae grabs the gram scale he uses to calculate energy requirements to move a given clockwork machine. He carefully balances the exercise ball on the scale with its occupant inside, then again once he’s returned Cuddles to his enclosure. A little math reveals the hamster weighs in at a hundred and forty-five grams, empirically confirming what Jongdae’s eyes are telling him. The little guy is almost back to fighting weight and certainly seems much more active and alert. 

Over the next few weeks, Cuddles becomes his constant companion while he works. The internet reports hamsters are supposed to be most active at dusk and dawn but Cuddles has started to follow Jongdae's schedule instead. 

Each morning Cuddles is waiting for him at the enclosure door to hop into his ball and supervise the human’s efforts. They eat lunch together—usually some kimbap for Jongdae and some fruit and nuts for Cuddles. And at the end of the day, Cuddles seems reluctant to hop back from the ball into his cage. He always fills his cheek pouches with pellets and burrows into the bedding as Jongdae cleans up and goes to bed himself.

To Jongdae’s delight, in addition to keeping him company, Cuddles seems to like when Jongdae talks to him. He always looks so attentive when Jongdae explains things to him, and if the tinker is silent for too long, Cuddles will make a little noise to get his attention so he starts the narration once again. 

“Where did that ten-millimeter worm gear end up?” Jongdae asks absently one afternoon.

A tiny squeak draws his eyes to the hamster ball where Cuddles is pawing at the plastic. Following the hamster’s gaze, Jongdae finds the missing gear rolled off next to the glass jars of washers.

“Oh, thanks,” he says, retrieving the wayward part and returning to the assembly.

Half a minute later, he looks back up at the hamster, brow furrowed. Surely that must have been a coincidence. It’s one thing for the hamster to be intrigued by the shiny little parts Jongdae uses and entirely another for him to understand what they’re called. It’s inconceivable that a rodent would be able to comprehend speech enough to understand and answer a question. Isn’t it?

Cuddles sits placidly on his haunches, nose wiggling serenely as he watches the human work.

Shaking his head at his own whimsy, Jongdae concentrates again on the assembly in his hands.

⚙️🐹⚙️

Jongdae sits up in bed, wide awake with the solution to the rotational inertia problem he’s been having clear as day in his mind. Outside his mind it’s still the middle of the night, but Jongdae can’t wait until morning to sketch out this new idea.

He pulls a bathrobe on over his bare torso and stumbles down to his workshop, unable to keep the grin from his face as clockwork assemblies take shape in his head. But his face twists in confusion when his eyes land on the hamster’s cage—which somehow appears occupied by something else entirely.

Well, maybe not entirely. The cage is filled with something—someone—that would appear to be human except for the big round silver-gray ears on the sides of his head. His eyes are wide and dark, his full lips are slightly parted to reveal flat white incisors, and his cheeks are smooth and round. He also looks entirely miserable crammed into the enclosure which no longer seems excessively large in the slightest. And he’s nude, which is how Jongdae can see that he has a short pink tail extending from the base of his spine.

“Cuddles?” Jongdae asks stupidly, unsure if he’s addressing the guy in the cage or checking to see if his hamster pal will emerge from beneath the bedding around him.

The guy in the cage wrinkles his nose at the name. It’s entirely adorable. But then he winces when his elbow encounters the wire at his side and Jongdae rushes forward to disengage the latches that keep the wire top fastened to the bedding-filled bottom.

“You should have hollered or something so I’d have come let you out,” Jongdae frowns. “How long have you been stuck in there like that?”

Sitting up with a shrug, the guy busies himself dusting the Fairy Fluff out of his pale orange hair. His face contorts with confusion when his fingers encounter his overlarge fuzzy ears and he ignores the stray bedding in favor of touching them cautiously.

Thankfully there’s still enough fluff in the guy’s lap to obscure some mysteries, but not enough that Jongdae can’t tell that the carpet definitely matches the drapes before he averts his eyes. Feeling like a creep even if the other is evidently unconcerned about his nudity, Jongdae sheds his robe and quickly hands it over.

The guy’s confused expression remains in place for a moment, then his brows lift with understanding as he looks down at himself. He hops off the table to put the robe on, leaving Jongdae standing awkwardly in his boxers with his eyes on the ceiling as the guy covers himself. 

“Uh. Are you actually Cuddles?” Jongdae asks, unsure whether he’s asking if the hamster became the man or if the man still has the hamster’s name but it gives him something to do while the guy dresses.

“No—I… not name,” the guy says slowly, voice husky and hesitant. “I… why hamster?”

Jongdae tilts his head. “Are you... not supposed to be a hamster?”

The guy blinks his big dark eyes at Jongdae. “I… supposed to be… big?”

Since the guy is basically Jongdae’s height, the half-elf pretends the confused dude is referring to being in hamster form.

“You’re big now,” he points out, but the former hamster shakes his head, brow furrowing in frustration.

“I... should be bigger,” he says, words flowing more easily the more he uses them. “And strong. I need to… I need to finish it.”

“Finish what?”

“I don’t know,” the guy growls. “It’s important. I think I need to… fight?” He looks down at himself, then back at Jongdae. “How can I fight like this?” His jaw drops. “I don’t even have… my… something?” He huffs in exasperation. “It’s important,” he insists, shaking his fists as if he’d like to be shaking some uncooperative person. “It’s important, and I can’t remember!”

He looks at Jongdae with huge fretful eyes. “What happened to me?” he asks, as if the guy standing mostly nude in front of him must surely have the answer.

“I don’t know,” Jongdae says, brows furrowing in apology. “The Sisters never told me you were anything but an ordinary hamster.”

“The sisters?”

“Yes, the three witches that run the pet shop.” Jongdae nods. “They must have known, though. They know everything.” He snorts. “No wonder they basically forced me to take you home—they probably didn’t want a naked guy suddenly appearing in their shop.”

The certainly-not-ordinary former hamster looks more distressed.

“Hey, don’t freak out,” Jongdae says, lifting a hand to rest on the other guy’s arm. “When Toes, Tails, and Snouts opens, we’ll go down there and get them to explain. It’ll be alright.”

The guy just stares down at Jongdae’s hand on his arm, looking very lost with his hands in fists by his chest and his big round ears folded low against his head.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I promise it’s going to be okay. I’m Jongdae, if you don’t remember, and I’ll help you figure this out. Is there something I should call you instead of Cuddles?” Jongdae offers a reassuring smile, ducking a little to catch the guy’s lowered gaze.

“I don’t even know my own name,” the guy almost whispers. “I think… it might have been something like… Min?”

Jongdae takes all the witty references to Minnie Mouse his brain cheerfully offers and locks them tightly away. 

“Min’s a better name than Cuddles,” he agrees instead. “I’m sure the Sisters will help with the rest. But their shop doesn’t open for another four hours. Do you want to sleep until then? Or maybe you’d like a shower? Or something to eat?”

Min’s stomach growls loud enough for Jongdae to hear, rousing the former hamster enough to shake his head, dislodging more fluff from his hair.

Jongdae smiles. Min may not be Cuddles anymore, but he’s still rather cute.

“Come on,” he says, keeping his voice soft and soothing. “You can shower while I cook us some breakfast.”

Min lifts his eyes to meet Jongdae’s. “Blueberries?” he asks, voice quiet but hopeful.

“Blueberries,” Jongdae agrees. “Among other things. No more pellets.”

This actually coaxes the hint of a smile from Min. Jongdae returns it with a bigger one, breathing an internal sigh of relief.

⚙️🐹⚙️

An hour later they’re both clean and dressed in flannel pajama pants and soft T-shirts since Min is conveniently close to Jongdae’s size. The former hamster seems rather embarrassed about his still-present tail—Jongdae had offered to cut a hole in the seat of his pants for Min’s comfort but the guy only shook his head, tucking the stubby thing inside as if it’s not there. The only thing making him look anything other than human are his silvery hamster ears—and the fact that he’s shoveling an entire plate of blueberry pancakes into his cheeks.

It’s adorable like everything else the guy does and Jongdae is just smiling fondly at him over his own plate of pancakes.

“What?” Min asks, rather clearly for someone whose cheeks are bulging dramatically.

“Nothing,” Jongdae says with a shake of his head. “You’re just really cute.”

Min looks incredibly uncomfortable, blushing down at his plate and poking at the remaining pancake with his fork.

“Sorry,” Jongdae quickly says. “I didn’t mean to sound like such a creep.”

Min says nothing, cheek pouches slowly deflating as he consumes the contents.

“Really,” Jongdae says. “I’m just not used to people. I don’t get out much, and when I do it’s usually to deliberately annoy someone so I’m sorry if I’m accidentally annoying even when I—“ 

“Jongdae,” Min interrupts. “It wasn’t you. It’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before?” He frowns at the remaining bit of pancake. “I vaguely remember being… well,  _ powerful. _ And proud of it.” He frowns harder. “I think I was actually kind of a jerk.”

“Oh,” Jongdae says, releasing a breath he was unaware he’d been holding. “Well, you don’t seem to be a jerk anymore. And you might still be powerful. We’ll ask the Sisters—they’re officially open in two and a half hours but I bet we could go a little early and they’d let us in.”

Min nods, finally lifting the last of the pancake into his mouth.

“Um. Until then, do you want to sleep a little? Or maybe watch a movie or something?” Jongdae asks, at a loss for how to entertain his suddenly-humanoid houseguest. 

Min flicks his eyes to meet Jongdae’s without lifting his face. He looks extra wide-eyed and vulnerable this way and Jongdae’s ready to fight Min’s forgotten foe for him, despite the half-elf’s own less-than-imposing physique.

“Do you, uh, need to work on anything? Any gears?” Min asks, blushing a little beneath the bright kitchen lights. “It’s just. It’s calming to watch you. Hear you explain.”

Jongdae feels his own cheeks heat. “Sure,” he nods. “That’s actually why I got up—I think I solved the problem I was grumbling about all day yesterday.”

“The rotational inertia thing?”

Surprised, the tinker tilts his head. “You actually understood me when you were a hamster?”

Min nods, picking up both their plates and carrying them to the sink. “Not at first. It was just pleasant background noise. But the more you talked the more I understood—the more I remembered? And then I realized I used to speak, too. That I used to be… someone.” He frowns down at the dishes he’s rinsing.

“You still are someone,” Jongdae assures him. “And I promise we’re going to figure it out.”

Jongdae would promise a lot to be rewarded with Min’s shy little smile.

⚙️🐹⚙️


	2. The Born Identity

⚙️🐹⚙️

The sun is barely up when Jongdae and Min make their way to Toes, Tails, and Snouts. Min startles at every little noise, even going so far as to lift his hands and open his mouth threateningly in the direction of the disturbance. The gesture had seemed much more menacing when Min was a hamster displaying wickedly-sharp incisors. In this mostly-human shape, he just looks rather deranged.

“If we waited until the sun was higher, would you feel less anxious on the street?” Jongdae asks, concerned about Min’s rapid breathing.

“I doubt that would help,” Min grumbles. “I’ll still feel tiny and edible. I hate being small and vulnerable.”

Jongdae takes his hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “Hey, we may not be the biggest guys around, but that doesn’t make us vulnerable. We’re clever and fierce. The world should be terrified of  _ us.” _

Min gives the half-elf an unconvinced side-eye but Jongdae only smiles, squeezing his hand again whenever some sudden sound or movement arises. After several minutes of not being eaten or even threatened, Min relaxes noticeably, though he still walks so close behind Jongdae his breath tickles the back of the half-elf’s neck.

The pet shop has its CLOSED sign displayed through the plate glass door when they walk up, but there’s a heart-shaped sticky note with the phrase  _ Unless you’re our Chenny! _ written in sparkling purple ink. 

With a shrug and a glance at Min, Jongdae tugs open the door, triggering the windchimes overhead to produce a medley of gentle wooden tones. Not a moment later, Miss Tiffany bounces through the beaded curtain.

“ChenChen!” she cheers, then gasps. “And our adorable Cuddles! Just  _ look _ at you—”

Jongdae can feel the alarmed hamster-guy duck behind him, hiding his face between Jongdae’s shoulder blades, squeezing the hand he still has captive. Stretching his other arm behind him protectively, Jongdae lifts his chin and widens his stance as Miss Tiffany bounces up. Sure, she’s a witch and Jongdae’s just a guy who plays with gears, but he wasn’t bluffing about being fierce. There’s no way he’s going to let her terrify Min more than necessary.

Thankfully, Miss Tiffany stops about a meter away, giving Jongdae a once-over resulting in a proud smile curving her eyes into crescents. 

“Look at you, Chenny! How does it feel to stand your ground for once instead of either giving up or running away?”

“Er, what?” Jongdae asks, more than a little distracted by the feeling of Min’s lips pressed to his back as the hamster-guy peers cautiously over Jongdae’s shoulder.

“And Cuddles looks  _ so good!” _ she chirps.

“He’s called Min,” Jongdae corrects. “And we’re here to find out who he really is and why you were keeping him in your back room.”

“Of course you are,” Miss Tiffany agrees. “Unnie’s waiting for you upstairs.”

“U-Upstairs?” It’s well known that the three live in the apartment above the shop, but no one but the Sisters have ever been up there—at least, not that Jongdae knows of.

Miss Tiffany laughs, a lovely bell-like sound. “Don’t look so scared,” she chides. “We hardly ever lure people to our lair and hold them against their will.”

Min presses tighter against Jongdae’s back. “Suddenly the street seems much more appealing,” he murmurs, almost too quiet for Jongdae to hear him even though his face is less than twenty centimeters from Jongdae’s ear.

“Stop freaking Min out, Noona,” Jongdae says, adding the honorific at the last minute when he remembers that  _ oh yeah, she’s a powerful witch. _

She laughs again. “Go on up—you know where the stairs are.”

Jongdae nods, sidling carefully past the smirking witch to step behind the counter and slip through the beaded curtain, Min practically a part of his body at this point.

“Miss Taeyeon’s super nice,” Jongdae murmurs as they make their way through the labyrinth of the back room. “If she lured you and held you captive, she had a good reason. I trust her. It’ll be okay.”

He feels a nod against his shoulder and then they’re climbing the twisting staircase to the second floor. Jongdae forces himself not to imagine Frodo and Sam wandering into Shelob’s territory. He’s sure they won’t share the hobbits’ fate.

Well, mostly.

⚙️🐹⚙️

“Ah, my favorite visitor—and our well-recovered refugee!” 

Miss Taeyeon is all smiles as she lets them in to what turns out to be a cozy apartment. Oh, it’s also very witchy—there are fat colored candles on every flat surface, gauzy silks draped over windows and walls, and the scent of incense tickles Jongdae’s nose. But it’s a homey sort of witchy—there’s a small copper cauldron set on the stove beside an equally-copper tea kettle. On the mantle, flower-filled vases flank the ceramic bowl in which grain is placed as an offering for Seongju, spirit of the home. 

There’s an aura of safety and peace and Min manages to detach from Jongdae’s spine as Miss Taeyeon leads them to a group of velvet-upholstered overstuffed furniture.

“Please, sit,” she beckons. “The tea should be just about ready.” 

Min and Jongdae sit side by side on the loveseat, still holding hands. Miss Taeyeon pours them tea from a traditional porcelain service waiting on the wrought-iron-and-glass coffee table, and Jongdae and Min each obediently accept one of the small circular cups.

“Now then,” Miss Taeyeon begins. “How are you feeling? Obviously well enough to assume a humanoid form, but are you still in pain?”

Min shakes his head. “Not physically, anyway,” he says. “But I feel really anxious all the time. And guilty. Like I’m forgetting something more important than my own name. Like I’m supposed to be somewhere, doing something, and every minute that I’m not, I’m letting people down.”

The petite witch nods. “That’s understandable,” she says. “Untethered souls do not linger in the mortal realm unless they have some sort of unfinished business.”

Jongdae almost chokes on his tea. It’s a really lovely chamomile blend, but that doesn’t mean he wants to breathe it.

“Untethered soul?” Jongdae chokes out.

“Am I like, a ghost or something?” Min asks. “I died? I’m d-dead?” 

His gray ears are pricked high in alarm. He’s also drawn his hands close to his chest, cradling his teacup just like he used to clutch kernels of dried maize. Jongdae wants to put an arm around his shoulders but isn’t sure that would be welcome. He settles for shifting his weight so he’s pressed closer against Min’s side, relieved when the hamster-guy leans into him instead of moving away.

Miss Taeyeon gives Min a sympathetic look. “You did die,” she confirms gently. “But you’re not a ghost. You’re just as real and alive as our Chen.”

She smiles softly at the questions swimming in Min’s dark eyes. “We found your soul wandering a few months ago when my sisters and I were gathering herbs by moonlight. You followed us, radiating desperation. There was nothing of wickedness in your aura, so we decided to give you a second chance.”

“As a hamster?” Jongdae asks, more than a little confused by their choice.

Miss Taeyeon nods. “An untethered soul can be directed to inhabit an existing but soulless body, but we are white witches. We do not dabble with necromancy. Instead, we helped you concentrate your undying persistence and manifest an entirely new body to inhabit.” 

“However, the more essence expended in the formation of this new flesh, the harder it is for the soul to recall the purpose for which it remained behind instead of moving on. Therefore, we chose to guide you into manifesting as the animal form of a hamshifter, knowing that as your soul recovered from the trauma of death and the ordeal of self-incarnation, that you would regain your ability to take humanoid form and thus carry out your task.”

She leans toward Min, resting a hand on his knee. “Interrupting the natural cycle of life and death is nothing to be done for a trifle,” she says softly. “We would not have interfered except that we felt the enormity of your regret—and that it was not for your own self you wished to resume your purpose, but for the greater good. That you had set yourself as a shield between what is right and what is corrupt, and that your regret was not in falling, but in doing so before shining a light on the darkness that separated body from soul.”

Leaning back again into the cozy armchair, Miss Taeyeon takes a sip of her tea. “We believed the insult to nature of our interference would be balanced by the successful completion of your quest. The fact that you still feel the push to finish what you started—even though you do not yet recall what exactly that may be—is proof that our gamble was worthwhile.”

For a moment, the only sound is the ticking of the clock Jongdae had made for them years ago and the sipping of tea.

“What if I can’t remember what I’m supposed to do?” Min asks, trembling a little against Jongdae’s side. “What if I remember, but I can’t do it in this body?” He swallows hard. “What if I fail again?”

Miss Taeyeon lifts a brow. “What do you recall so far?” she asks.

“I don’t really know,” Min mourns. “I’ve been getting odd flashes, even when I was still a hamster. Like I’m watching a blurry movie from far away. It feels more like someone else’s life than my own, but this life doesn’t really feel like mine, either. Nothing is familiar anymore.”

His voice goes a little rough and Jongdae instinctively wraps his arm around the hamshifter’s shoulders. He’s reassured when Min takes a deep breath and continues, sitting a little straighter. 

“I think my name is Min-something? Or something-min. And that I used to be something like a warrior? But more than that? Somehow gifted—I feel like something is missing, some connection or resource that I used to have is lost to me in this body.”

The little witch nods. “This makes sense. I do not believe your death was preceded by an act of hubris or futility, and one does not otherwise oppose a great threat without believing themselves capable of defeating it or at least hindering it in a meaningful way.”

She offers an encouraging smile. “You’ve already remembered part of who you are. There’s no reason why the rest shouldn’t come to you in time. And while your new body is not that of a warrior, there are many kinds of strength. You may not have the same resources at your disposal, but that doesn’t mean you have  _ no _ resources.”

She gestures for them to place their now-empty teacups back onto the wooden tray with the rest of the service. “Your dying regret was that no one else knew of the corruption you couldn’t overcome alone. Don’t let that be your regret this time around.”

With that, she ushers them toward the door.

“Keep a list of everything that comes back to you and review it often to continue to jog your mind,” Miss Taeyeon says as she closes the door behind them. “Trust your soul to reveal your truth, and don’t forget your resources.”

⚙️🐹⚙️

Miss Tiffany and Miss Seohyun coo at them as they leave the shop hand-in-hand but Jongdae doesn’t care. They just had one of the weirdest conversations Jongdae’s ever had in his life, and he once made the mistake of asking a centaur guy with a human lover how exactly  _ that _ worked. It’s not only Min that needs the tactile reassurance of the other’s hand in his.

Of course today would be the day that Kris would see them scurrying home and use his giant legs to cross the street and catch them up.

“Fuck off,” Jongdae hisses as the gray-skinned guy gets nearer. Min’s pressed close behind him and Jongdae sets his jaw, ready to destroy the quarter-giant if he even says one rude thing to the hamshifter.

“Easy there, Killer,” Kris says, hands palm up. “I’m actually here to ask a favor.”

Jongdae raises a skeptical brow, continuing to keep himself between the too-tall guy and the one at his back.

Kris rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Look, I know you have no reason to help me but I don’t know anyone else to ask. It’s all about robots and electronics these days and, well, you know about stuff that doesn’t need electricity to work.”

“He’s a genius,” a proud voice confirms from just beside Jongdae’s ear. Min presses even closer to hook his pointy little chin over Jongdae’s shoulder.

Kris blinks at the second head the half-elf has suddenly grown. “Who is that?” he asks.

“A friend,” Jongdae says briefly, trying to shift the focus away from Min.

Kris’s eyes go wide.  _ “You _ have a  _ friend?” _ he asks before Jongdae’s scowl evidently reminds him he’s trying to convince the tinker to help him out. “I mean, uh, nice to meet you. I’m Kris.” He drops a bow in greeting.

“Min,” the hamshifter answers, bobbing his torso in reply.

“Ah. Well. Right,” Kris says. “Great. Friends are great. And so is being able to get to the mountain cave you refuse to move out of even though you’re old and arthritic like my grandma,” Kris continues in what is a contender for the most awkward segue ever.

Jongdae rolls his eyes. “So what, you want me to build her some kind of granny lift? Up a  _ mountain? _ ”

Kris nods. “There’s no electricity up there and it snows too often for a solar panel to be very useful,” he says. “And being a giant, it’s not like she can get a moped or a mule or something. She needs a way to crank herself up and down. You know about gears. Couldn’t you figure something out for her?”

“I  _ could,” _ Jongdae answers, letting the emphasis imply that his ability doesn’t equate to willingness.

“And he will!” Min chirps. “He wouldn’t leave someone’s gran to either suffer or sacrifice her independence, would you, Dae?”

_ Dae? _

Suddenly Jongdae is intensely aware of every single place that their bodies are touching.

“Uh, of course not,” Jongdae answers. “I’ll draw up some plans when we get back.”

Kris’s gray face melts in gratitude and relief. He actually  _ smiles. _ It’s less creepy than Jongdae would have guessed.

“Thanks!” the quarter-giant says. “Really, Jongdae, you’re a lifesaver. Uh, can I maybe pick up the plans on Tuesday? My uncle is a smith so he should be able to forge whatever gears are needed out of whatever metal you recommend.”

Jongdae nods, not really trusting himself to speak at the moment.

“Awesome,” Kris smiles again. “Yes. Okay. Great. See you Tuesday. Cool.” The quarter-giant backs away, giving them an awkward wave before pivoting in time to save himself from tripping over the opposite curb.

Jongdae tries not to scowl at the unwanted commitment, starting again for his apartment. His mood is improved by the fact that Min is fairly skipping beside him.

“Can we eat pizza later?” he asks. “With pineapple? I’m so glad to be done with pellets.” He sticks his adorable pink tongue out in disgust.

Unable to suppress a smile even though pineapple on pizza is gross, Jongdae nods. Evidently he’s going to agree to whatever Min wants, like some sort of spineless loser.

A spineless loser with a giddy hamshifter giving him the gummiest smile, emphasizing his entirely-too-pinchable cheeks.

Damn, this is going to end up  _ awkward. _

⚙️🐹⚙️

Min’s mood steadily drops over the rest of the morning, much to Jongdae’s concern. The hamshifter has been sitting at the drafting table making lists while Jongdae assembles prototypes at the worktable, frustrated sighs providing counterpoints to the tinker’s consternated hums. Jongdae has just about figured out which size square gears he needs to get the timing right when Min’s sighs finally become growls.

“Maybe it’s time for a break,” Jongdae suggests, setting down the mechanism in his hands and wiping them on the seat of his pants to remove lingering machine oil. He crosses the room to where Min sits scowling down at several sheets of paper. 

“I’m already wasting too much time,” Min grumbles as Jongdae peers over his shoulder. 

The hamshifter’s handwriting seems to have started a little sloppy but improved as his new body adjusted to the task. Each page is topped with a header— _ Personal, Professional, Current Events, Pop Culture, Miscellaneous. _ The number of bulleted items below varies from sheet to sheet, but the last entries on each are written roughly again, lines sharp and rushed. 

“This is so frustrating. I know who’s still alive on The Walking Dead but not my own actual name.”

“That’s good, though—it means you couldn’t have died more than three months ago. The season finale aired at the end of March, and it’s not even July yet.”

Min’s back straightens a bit and he adds a note to the Personal page. It’s about the only concrete information the page holds— _ age, birthdate, family, relationships, _ and  _ home _ are each followed by question marks, as is the single syllable listed after  _ name. _ At the end of the list just before  _ died <3 mos ago _ is  _ I like blueberries. _

Reading the sparse biography gives Jongdae a taste of Min’s melancholy. He must feel so lost.

Jongdae takes the drafting pencil from Min’s slack grip. Leaning over the page, he erases the question marks after the word  _ home. _ Then he uses his own square engineer’s printing to fill the space again. When he’s done, the line reads  _ Home: with Jongdae for as long as necessary, obligation-free. _

“There,” he says, setting the pencil in the tray and resting his hands on Min’s hunched shoulders. “That’s one thing you don’t need to worry about—you have plenty of stress already.”

Min heaves a big sigh, then straightens up. “Thanks,” he says, voice a little unsteady but the accompanying nod decisive. “If I was distraught enough about my failure to refuse to move on, then I’ll take that to mean I’m not a quitter. I didn’t give up then and I won’t now. I’ll figure out whatever it was that the old me started, and then I’m going to finish it.”

“Of course you will,” Jongdae nods. “I’ll help, and I’m sure the Sisters will, too. If you were a warrior, do you think you’d be listed on some military roster somewhere?”

Min reclaims the pencil from the tray. “Hmm. I don’t… think I was with the military? I mean, not like a rank-and-file regiment. I think I was part of a smaller team or that I worked alone?” He taps the pencil against his pointed chin. “I think whatever kind of special I’m not anymore… I think we were all like that?”

Jongdae tugs the  _ Professional _ list in front of the pensive hamshifter.

“So, you were part of some elite special-ops type group made up of supernaturally-gifted people, either magical or something else. You worked in a small group or alone, and at some point you died alone. Either as the last one standing or on some solo mission.”

Min nods as he lists out each conclusion. “It’s really weird to talk about myself dying,” he mutters.

Jongdae hides a smile behind Min’s creamy orange hair. “But that’s basically the center of this whole mystery, right? How and where you died?”

“I know,” Min says a little sullenly. His ears lift, tickling Jongdae’s cheek with their velvety fur. “Can we just say ‘got recycled’ instead, though?”

“Sure,” Jongdae agrees, letting his amusement color his voice. 

His face sobers when the crease in the hamshifter’s brow returns and he sighs down at his lists again.

“Come on,” Jongdae says, straightening up to tug at Min’s sleeve playfully. “Let’s both stop staring at things that frustrate us for a bit. We’ll go out. Get lunch. Pick up some things I need for this mechanism.” 

He tugs again at the fabric of the shirt Min is wearing. “And we could get you some clothes of your own.”

Min’s silvery ears flare and his big eyes widen. “But I like wearing  _ your _ clothes.” He hugs himself and twists away from Jongdae’s teasing fingers, as if the half-elf is about to demand the shirt back at that very moment.

Then his face scrunches in self-censure as he shakes his head as if to clear it. “Sorry. You’re being so generous already. I don’t mean to monopolize your things. They just… smell familiar. It’s… reassuring.”

Jongdae can’t help but grin at him. The hamshifter is just so  _ cute. _ But he’s also looking rather fretful and Jongdae hastens to reassure him.

“It’s really fine. You can wear whatever of mine you want. I’m just happy we’re close enough in size to share.” He gives the hamshifter a knowing little smile. “Maybe you’d like your own underwear though, at least?”

Min blushes a little. “I don’t have any way to pay for anything at the moment.”

Jongdae shrugs. “The Sisters gave me a credit card when I first brought you home so I could buy whatever you needed that they didn’t carry. I thought that meant like, fruits and nuts and so on, but I’m sure underwear falls under that list as well.”

Min huffs, looking bashfully at the cement workshop floor. 

Tugging the hamshifter once again toward the door, Jongdae’s gaze lands on the now-unused hamster enclosure. “I guess we should probably bring all the pet stuff back to the Sisters at some point. I mean, even if you turned back—” Jongdae looks back at Min curiously. “Wait,  _ can _ you turn back?”

The hamshifter shrugs. “I assume so?” He gives Jongdae a suspicious look. “You want me to turn back so you can hook my hamster wheel up to power your mechanisms,” he accuses, failing to suppress the curling of his lips into a playful smile.

Jongdae blinks, then grins. “That would be really cool! But I wouldn’t use that wheel—I’d build one right into the automaton—hamaton? Like a little hamster-powered tank or something.”

Min laughs and Jongdae is filled with the resolve to build anything for the guy that keeps that happy light in his eyes instead of the shadow of his unremembered past. 

“That actually sounds pretty fun. Would I get little ham-goggles and a ham-helmet?”

“Of course,” Jongdae grins. “Ham-safety is important.”

The hamshifter laughs again, eyes curving into gentle paisleys with his amusement. Jongdae’s gut clenches. Why was it so hard for him to connect with his elven classmates or human cousins with whom he shared a heritage, but this complete mystery of a man has Jongdae wrapped around his finger in barely twelve hours of human-shaped acquaintanceship?

Probably because he’d been hamster-shaped for over a month before that. Jongdae may have been uninterested or untalented at every other aspect of druidry, but he’d always listened well when the Sisters told him about the care and feeding of the creatures that had so fascinated him. But Min’s not really a cute little animal for Jongdae to fuss and coo over. 

The half-elf internally shakes himself, reminding his protective feelings that Min’s a grown man who used to be some kind of badass, and he’s going to remember exactly what sort of badassery and jaunt off to save the world with his fellow badasses from whatever foolishly believes him to be a neutralized threat. He doesn’t need Jongdae to get all squishy over him just because he’s too awkward to get along well with his own peers. He just needs Jongdae’s assistance for what little time it’s sure to take for him to regain everything he’s temporarily misplaced.

As if sensing Jongdae’s internal scowl, Min’s face dissolves from amusement to wariness as Jongdae sits at the bench by the door to pull his shoes on.

“We’ll walk?” he asks.

“We’ll walk to the train station. There are food carts on the way. Then we’ll take the train to Borderline Bits.”

“Beef,” Min says, sitting down beside Jongdae and tugging on the pair of shoes he’d worn earlier. “We’re getting beef. I may be a hamster now but I’m not a vegetarian.”

Jongdae can’t help but smile.  _ “Really _ tired of pellets?”

MIn’s eye roll is way too endearing for Jongdae’s intent to maintain a respectful distance. 

⚙️🐹⚙️

The half-elf’s strength is further tested when Min automatically reaches for Jongdae’s hand as they walk towards the train station. The way the hamshifter’s ears prick up at every interesting sound and only flatten a little at loud or startling ones is heartwarming, as is the way his lips part to expose his two front teeth when his nose scrunches, sniffing the aromas wafting from the line of food carts. 

Jongdae firmly tells himself it’s not because the hamshifter’s animated expressions are adorable. It’s only because he’s less fearful, more inquisitive, and that surely bodes well for his ability to rediscover the pieces of his missing memory.

Min is some kind of honorable hero, not some precious little thing just because he makes the cutest little noises of enjoyment around the marinated beef he crams into his mouth enthusiastically. He’s no less badass because of how adorable it is when the hamshifter’s cheeks bulge more and more with each emptied skewer. And if Jongdae keeps encouraging Min to go ahead and have as much as he wants, it’s because the Sisters charged him with improving the hamshifter’s health, not because he wants to watch Min’s cheek pouches stretch to ridiculous proportions.

That doesn’t stop Jongdae from laughing when Min catches on to the half-elf’s nefarious plot.

“You jerk,” Min complains, voice distorted along with his cheeks. “I’m gonna have to spit some of this out. It’s not all gonna fit in my stomach and I’m not gonna carry the rest around in my face until my stomach’s empty again like I used to.”

“Why not?” Jongdae asks, still stifling giggles.

“Because! That’s gross.”

“Why is it gross?” Jongdae presses. “It seems rather convenient.”

“Not if I want to talk to anyone without spitting meaty drool over both of us.” Min wipes his face on one of the many napkins he’d bashfully accepted from the highly-amused beef cart proprietor.

“Why does it make you so drooly now but not when you’re a hamster?”

“I don’t know, Dae,” Min huffs, scowling when the outburst produces more of the embarrassing spit that he hastily blots. “Ugh, you’re worse than my little nephew with all your incessant questions—” 

Min freezes, ears high, eyes wide. “Dae. I have a nephew. His name is Daeul. He looks just like my sister, Minsoo.” 

A shiver runs through the hamshifter, culminating in an adorable little hop of triumph. “Minseok!” He bounces on his toes, turning to face Jongdae. “I’m Minseok. Kim Minseok. That’s my name. That’s who I am!”

Jongdae’s face hurts from smiling at the crowing guy, content to stand there and watch Min—Min _ seok— _ jump around and repeat his own name like the world’s most adorable pokémon. He doesn’t even mind that he gets repeatedly showered with beefy-smelling spit.

⚙️🐹⚙️

Minseok’s bouncy mood continues as the pair catches the train to the shopping district, his face much slimmer thanks to a judicious stop in the train station restroom. So Jongdae’s still grinning as he escorts the giddy hamshifter through the door into Borderline Bits. His smile parts around laughter when Minseok’s ears prick and his lips fall open, releasing an awed little  _ ooh _ as he spins to take in the floor-to-ceiling shelves of various bits of gleaming metal.

There’s a dull metallic clunk from the direction of the sales counter, drawing Jongdae’s gaze to the tall, well-built duo that run the shop. They’re both frozen, a pair of otherworldly statues, eyes glowing softly as they stare.

Jongdae immediately moves to place himself between them and the enraptured hamshifter, frowning at the thought of anyone’s censure dampening Minseok’s newly-raised spirits.

This evidently restores the higher brain functions of the unlikely friends. Looking sheepish, the cambion picks up the pendulum weight he’d evidently been polishing. He keeps his goat-like eyes on the brass part in his hand, but his nephilim companion’s golden irises remain fixed on the half-elf.

“...Jongdae?” he greets, as if unsure who he’s addressing.

“Sehun,” Jongdae returns. He shifts his weight to the side to interfere when the shopkeeper’s gaze tries to slide past Jongdae’s shoulder to where Minseok is still taking in the seemingly-endless rows of shelving packed into the ostensibly tiny shop. “Did those new adamantine flywheels come in yet?”

Sehun narrows his eyes slightly, then nods.

Minseok appears suddenly at Jongdae’s shoulder. “Your shop is fascinating! May I look around?”

The nephilim’s suspicious look melts off his opalescent face before the force of the hamshifter’s beaming regard. His small mouth draws up into an answering smile.

“Of course. Feel free to explore, Mister…?”

“Kim!” the giddy man fairly shouts into Jongdae’s ear. “Kim Minseok! That’s me.” 

He grins at Sehun, then at Jongdae, squeezing the half-elf’s shoulder before skipping off among the shelves. A moment later, a delighted squeal rings through the shop.

“Dae! Come look at these little—” there’s a brief pause. “Geneva drives,” Minseok finishes, sounding like he’s reading the label on the front of a parts bin. “They look like shiny silver snowflakes!” 

Jongdae feels the corners of his lips twitch. Happy, bouncy Minseok is an unending delight, and Jongdae will really miss him when he figures the rest of his life out and takes off to be a hero. Shoving the thought aside, Jongdae nods to Sehun before trailing down the aisle after Minseok.

Evidently the cambion has forgotten that half-elves have more acute hearing than the average human customer they must get, because Jongdae’s barely stepped between the shelves when he hears the shopkeep hiss to his companion.

“Psst! Sehun!” the cambion whisper-shouts. “Are you sure that’s Jongdae?”

“Yes, Chanyeol,” Sehun replies, sounding slightly amused. “You know the truth can’t hide from me.”

“But wasn’t he  _ smiling? _ Like, in a  _ happy _ way, not like he’d just gotten one of his automata to like, trip someone or something?”

“Yes, Chanyeol.”

“And he has someone with him—someone who was also smiling  _ at _ Jongdae and  _ holding his hand?” _

“Yes, Chanyeol.”

There’s a pause. 

“Okay, but are you  _ sure _ that’s Jongdae?”

_ “Yes, _ Chanyeol.”

Minseok’s sensitive hamster ears evidently pick up the conversation as well, because he’s wearing a bashful little smile as Jongdae steps close to look at the graceful six-spoked driven wheel in the man’s hands.

“Is it really so strange for you to go shopping with a friend?” he asks, allowing Jongdae to pluck the wheel from his fingers.

Jongdae feels his face heat. “Well. One would have to  _ have  _ friends to go shopping with one.”

“A guy like you should have plenty of friends,” Minseok scoffs, picking up the drive wheel and tracing the crescent-shaped hub opposite the drive pin. Big brown eyes lift to search Jongdae’s face in the ensuing pause. “You really don’t have  _ any?” _

The half-elf shrugs, taking the drive wheel from the hamshifter and aligning the pin with the slot in one of the spokes of the “shiny silver snowflake.”

“I’m not sure what qualities you think ‘a guy like me’ has, but I’m not all that good at making friends.”

“Why not?”

“Um. I’m not really… nice?” Jongdae winces. 

Minseok’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean, ‘not nice?’”

Jongdae shrugs, fiddling with the Geneva drive in his hands. “I’m brusque and cynical and selfish. I avoid interacting with people unless I need them to do something for me. And I go out of my way to avoid having to do anything for anyone else.”

He keeps his eyes on the mechanism as it turns, unwilling to look up and see the judgment sure to be writ across the heroic hamster’s face. But he won’t lie to the guy that’s stuck living with him until he figures out how to be heroic again. The observant guy would probably be able to tell if Jongdae tried, anyway, just like Sehun’s celestial senses allow him to always detect the truth.

The hexagonal wheel makes one sixth of a rotation for every turn of the drive wheel, pausing until the pin comes around to advance it again. “I’m basically a self-centered jerk who doesn’t care about anyone else,” Jongdae admits. 

“That’s a bunch of trollshit,” Minseok declares, startling Jongdae enough to look up at the irate hamshifter’s scowl. “You just spent over a month taking perfect care of a sickly hamster.”

“Animals are different,” Jongdae says. 

“But I’m not an animal,” Minseok counters. “And when I stopped looking like one in the middle of the night, you immediately did everything possible to continue to take care of me. And three times now you’ve made to protect me, even though those witches, that part-giant, and these half-human shopkeepers could all have squished you had they wanted to.”

“Hey,” Jongdae objects even though the hamshifter isn’t wrong. “It’s precisely  _ because _ the Sisters could toadify me that I agreed to take care of you. I’m not gonna break my word to them just because you’re a different shape now.”

His eyes drop again to the wheels he’s still turning in his hands. “I mean, not that you need me to protect you. You’re the hero, after all.”

“I’m a  _ hamster,” _ Minseok scoffs. “Whatever heroic powers I used to have are gone now. And they weren’t enough to save me in the first place, anyway. You opened your home to a rodent and got a naked emo guy instead and still managed to hero up and help me out without complaining, and you don’t have any supernatural powers at all.”

Swallowing back the bitterness at this accidental reminder of his status as a disappointment, Jongdae rolls his eyes. “I said I wasn’t  _ nice. _ I didn’t say I was cruel. Witches or no, I’m hardly gonna kick you out when you have nowhere else to go. You’ll remember the rest and go kick ass and save the world from evil even without your old abilities, and until you do I promise to be as friendly and helpful to you as I know how to be, okay?”

Minseok tilts his head, regarding Jongdae with one narrowed eye. “I think you and I are having two entirely different arguments here,” he states.

“J-Jongdae?” Chanyeol’s hesitant baritone interrupts whatever else the hamshifter might have said. The cambion’s horned head pokes around a shelf. “Uh. Sehun got those flywheels out of the back for you to look at.” 

Chanyeol’s eyes keep sliding to Minseok and Jongdae fights the urge to step between the two men. 

“Thanks,” he says, handing the Geneva drive to Minseok before following the cambion back up to the service counter.

He can practically feel Minseok’s considering gaze following him to the end of the aisle.

The heavy, durable flywheels Sehun shows him are just the sort Jongdae would use to build a granny lift powered both gently and intermittently by hand, so he notes down all the specifications for the largest one, promising Sehun he’d be sending Kris in to purchase the expensive parts once he’d finished drawing up the plans.

“So where did you find that cute little centaur, and why does he only have two legs instead of four?” Sehun asks as he rings up the frictionless bearings and pulleys Jongdae’s purchasing for the pincer arm upgrade to his experimental prototype.

Jongdae blinks, tilts his head at Sehun, looks over his shoulder to see if a half-horse, half human creature had appeared in the shop when he wasn’t looking (one hadn’t) and then looks back to blink up at the nephilim again.

“Mister Kim? Minseok?” Sehun prods. “I haven’t seen him around before.”

“Minseok’s a hamshifter, not a centaur,” Jongdae says, baffled to be having this conversation with the divine demihuman. Surely he can see that— 

“No way. You can tell that he was a centaur?” Jongdae gasps. “Really? Hey, Min!”

The inquisitive guy pops back over to the sales counter, ears and eyebrows asking questions.

“Sehun says you were a centaur.”

Minseok’s ears and eyebrows somehow lift even higher, now completely hidden by his pale orange hair. The rest of him is still for so long that Jongdae hesitantly rests a hand on his arm, more than a little concerned. The action causes the breath to woosh out of his body, his eyebrows to lower to their usual spot, and his mouth to fall open. 

“Of course I was,” he breathes. “I can remember—yes. I was a coldblood. We’re the biggest centaur race—I was almost three meters tall.” His ears are still in their full upright and locked positions as he turns away from Sehun’s enigmatic smile to blink at Jongdae’s grin.

“No wonder I feel so fucking tiny,” he grumbles, plunking his forehead into Jongdae’s shoulder as his ears finally droop.

_ “So cute,” _ the cambion whispers, gazing at the shorter pair with goatish goo-goo eyes.

Minseok’s ear pricks in Chanyeol’s direction and the nephilim elbows his companion as Jongdae wraps consoling arms around the hamshifter.

“Clever and fierce, remember?” he chuckles, giving Minseok a squeeze.

The former centaur’s head pops up. “That’s right. But maybe you can use some of your cleverness to build me a clockwork centaur body so I can be  _ big _ and fierce.”

“If you choose to pursue such an endeavour, please remember Borderline Bits for all your mechanical needs,” Sehun says smoothly, handing Jongdae a shopping bag and blessing them both with a smile.

“As if I’m likely to forget,” Jongdae huffs. “Will you call me when that mithril plating comes in? Anything that big will need to be made of something strong and light or it’ll never go anywhere.”

“Of course,” Sehun agrees as an excited hamshifter bounces at Jongdae’s shoulder.

When Minseok grabs Jongdae’s hand to drag the amused half-elf off to their next destination, Chanyeol chokes on a squeal. It’s cut off with a thud and an  _ ow _ but the cambion still manages to wish them a nice day.

Jongdae’s not sure if it’s a nice day or not. Minseok is remembering things so quickly—surely he’ll recall his purpose soon, and that’s great for the determined hamshifter.

It’s gonna suck for the guy who’d somehow gone from lone-wolf to overly-attached-flatmate in less than a single day, though. 

⚙️🐹⚙️


	3. The Hamster Who Loved Me

⚙️🐹⚙️

Their afternoon out was fruitful but exhausting, and Jongdae is more than a little relieved when they finally get back to his apartment building. He checks his mail in the lobby, frowning down at yet another envelope addressed to him in his father’s elegant handwriting.

“Why are you scowling at something that doesn’t look like a bill?” Minseok asks.

Jongdae shakes his head dismissively as he moves to unlock the door of his apartment. “Ah, nothing important. Just a letter from my dad.”

He chucks the letter onto the little table in the entryway to join the dozens of other identical envelopes. When he turns to help Minseok with the shopping bags, he finds the hamshifter staring at the pile of letters, an odd expression on his face.

“What’s the matter?” Jongdae asks, taking the bags from Minseok’s unresisting left hand. They’re much heavier than he expected—for a guy no bigger than he is, the hamshifter certainly is strong.

“You get letters from your dad and you just… ignore them?” he asks.

Jongdae winces. “Well. Yeah. I feel bad just throwing them out, but I don’t need to be insulted and belittled on paper now that I stopped taking his calls.”

The hamshifter frowns. “He’s cruel to you?”

Jongdae’s wince intensifies. “Not exactly. He just… has expectations I’ll never meet. And it’s exhausting to defend myself and my choices from someone who’ll never understand.”

If Jongdae had thought he’d seen Minseok upset before, he’d evidently been looking at a mere raincloud in comparison to the thunder now darkening the hamshifter’s face.

“So what if he doesn’t understand you? You don’t have to understand someone to love them. You have a  _ father, _ Jongdae. If he’s not abusive, how could you just…” He swallows around the break in his voice. 

“Do you know what I have, Jongdae? I have a rather common name and a relatively common species. That’s it. I’m glad to know, but it’s not enough to help me find the family that thinks I’m dead and wouldn’t recognize me if they saw me now anyway. Hells, if some stranger showed up at my sister’s place saying ‘Hey, I’m Daeul’s uncle, can I take him to the park?’ She’d have me fucking arrested before I even laid eyes on her kid and that’s if she didn’t crush my puny new body herself. My family is lost to me, but yours—”

Minseok stoops to set the rest of the shopping down, then reaches for the letter at the top of the pile. Before Jongdae can object he slides his finger beneath the flap of the envelope, tearing it open and pulling out the neatly-folded page within. He skims the contents, scowls harder, and slams it against Jongdae’s chest.

“I guess you’re right, Kim Jongdae. Maybe you are a self-centered jerk who doesn’t care about other people.”

The hamshifter storms off toward the workshop, leaving the stunned half-elf standing in the hallway holding the wrinkled letter. He pulls it away from his chest to look down at the elven words scrawled over the page.

_ I hope this finds you healthy. I miss you. Please call me. _

Jongdae’s heart sinks to the bottom of his shoes. Being a disappointment to his father is an old wound, one that doesn’t sting anymore unless he accidentally bumps up against it. But being a disappointment to Minseok makes him want to march straight down to TT&S and ask the Sisters to turn him into something small and ugly to better suit who he truly is.

Instead, he sighs and takes out his phone. First he orders a pizza with extra pineapple. Then, after staring at the screen for a long moment of self-flagellation, he calls his father.

“Jongdae?” his father answers, making the second time that day that someone has addressed him as if he couldn’t possibly be real.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Are you okay?” His father’s worried voice inquires.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. You just. Your letter said to call.”

There’s a pause.

“My letters have said to call for three years. What in this green earth made you actually do it now?”

Jongdae rests his forehead against the wall as a substitute for pounding it there instead. “I, um. Only just now read one.”

Another pause. 

“I see. Well. “Will you come by for dinner some evening? Or I could come into town…” 

And somehow Jongdae ends up making dinner arrangements with the man he’s been avoiding for years. That hadn’t been his intention at all, but Jongdae’s father has a certain way of speaking gently and rationally and making people agree to whatever it is he suggests. The druid had always sworn his persuasive abilities were charisma rather than magic but Jongdae has never quite believed him. He’s still vaguely concerned he’s being ensorceled at the moment even though such magic would be unlikely to work over a phone, especially a wireless one.

By the time Jongdae manages to end the call with this eerily-empathetic version of his father and sends a few texts, the pizza has arrived. He takes it into the workshop, setting it on the table across from the drafting desk Minseok’s hunched over. The hamster flicks his red-rimmed eyes up from the page he’s scribbling on, not looking at all glad to see the half-elf.

It hurts more than it should for a guy who’s used to being barely welcomed by anyone. 

“You should add that you can read elven to your list if you haven’t already. And the bedroom is yours—I’ll sleep on the couch.”

He feels that hot gaze burning a hole between his shoulder blades as he turns and exits the room.

⚙️🐹⚙️

Jongdae makes it about three whole steps beyond the workshop door before Minseok’s beside him, pizza box in hand. 

“You’re the literal worst to be mad at,” the hamshifter complains. “Especially when I’m mad for a dumb reason and said things to you that you didn’t deserve.”

“It wasn’t a dumb reason and I absolutely deserved it,” Jongdae counters, moving into the living room and fluffing up the couch cushions. He shakes the blanket out, pulls his shirt off, and tucks himself in, wiggling around a bit until he’s as comfortable as he can get on a questionable sofa found on craigslist.

It’s considerably less comfortable when Minseok plunks himself down on top of him, flipping open the pizza box with a hum of anticipation.

“What are you doing?” Jongdae wheezes through his crushed ribs.

“Giving you the punishment you seem to think you deserve so you can suffer adequately to assuage your guilt as quickly as possible so we can move on to watching a movie or something. My only entertainment for months has been running in a fucking wheel, Jongdae. You’re not gonna deprive me of actual fun by pouting all evening.”

He holds out a slice of pizza, poking the tip into Jongdae’s gasping mouth. “Besides, you haven’t had your dinner yet.”

Jongdae has no choice but to chew and swallow. 

“Good boy,” Minseok coos before taking his own enthusiastic bite from the slice.

Jongdae rolls his eyes.

Minseok laughs but slides off of Jongdae’s side and onto the couch when the half-elf coughs around the pizza in his mouth. He offers the pizza box to Jongdae, who sits up and takes a slice. Hunger has won out over stubbornness and the mouthful of pineapple and cheese he’d already swallowed wasn’t as gross as he’d anticipated.

For a while there’s only chewing. Then Minseok turns those big brown eyes on Jongdae, who barely manages to swallow without choking. 

“Dae. I’m sorry I said you were selfish. You’ve done so much for me and now you’re sitting there eating pizza you don’t even like just because the stranger you were forced by scary witches to take in mentioned that he wanted pineapple.”

Jongdae huffs around his mouthful. He shakes his head as he chews and swallows, wishing he had a cheek pouch of his own so he could more politely eat and talk.

“The pineapple isn’t awful,” he says. “And I don’t mind having a houseguest for a while. The scary witches are paying for everything, anyway, including this very…  _ interesting _ pizza.”

“You grimace every time you take a bite.”

Jongdae laughs. “Okay, I wouldn’t order it for myself. But it’s fine—I’ll pick the toppings next time and then you’ll be the one to suffer.”

“Deal,” Minseok agrees, ears lifting with his cheeks as he smiles.

Instead of distributing the pizza evenly, Minseok packs several slices into his right cheek so that he can sprawl out on the sofa, his left cheek resting on Jongdae’s thigh. He happily scrolls through Jongdae’s streaming entertainment options while the half-elf tries very hard not to think of the phrase “Netflix and chill.” If Minseok’s feeling alone in the world, Jongdae can suck it up and provide companionship without making it awkward.

“It’s so strange,” the hamshifter says, smiling up at Jongdae once he’s made his selection. “This body feels so comfortable to me, but this must be the first time I’ve ever stretched out on a sofa like this. I’ve only ever seen this sort of thing in bipedal dramas.”

“Do centaurs not have sofas?” Jongdae asks. 

“We usually just have low, backless futons because we rest on our chests with our feet tucked under us.” 

Minseok tries to demonstrate this by rolling up from Jongdae’s knee to draw his arms and legs in beneath his body. Jongdae snorts, fingers flying up to his lips to keep the laugh (and the pizza) in his mouth. Instead of a resting equine, Minseok looks much more like a huddled-up cat. Or, more appropriately, a human-sized hamster.

Minseok laughs, too, sprawling back out and reclaiming his former headrest. “Centaurs only lie on their sides when they’re deeply asleep. Lying down like this when awake—well. It feels perfectly natural, but it must be new. And I’ve certainly never lain on my back.”

“A lot of things must be new for you, then,” Jongdae agrees, absolutely not thinking about the hamshifter on his back.

He can feel Min’s jaw working occasionally as he shifts the stored pizza into his mouth to swallow. Jongdae keeps his eyes fixed on whatever cartoon movie Min had chosen for their evening entertainment. He does not look down at his lap to see how cute it is when Min’s cheek slowly deflates. Or to freak out about how close the hamshifter’s head is to his groin.

“Yes,” Minseok agrees. “It was rather surreal to bathe myself earlier—now I know why. To get fully clean, centaurs bathe each other. I’ve never been able to reach all my own parts before.”

Jongdae absolutely does not think about Minseok’s parts. He’s immensely grateful for the distraction when his phone chimes beside him.

“And my tail!” Minseok twists his body to look wryly at the twitching in the back of his sweatpants. “My long, glorious tail is now just a nub,” he laments. “I was stunning—a snowflake dapple. I would have been pure white eventually, but the last impression I have of my coat is of starbursts in a midnight sky. Just beautiful.” 

“I know,” Jongdae says, staring at the image on his phone. “Gods, you were fucking  _ ripped.” _

“I was?” Minseok says. “Yes, of course I was. I was some sort of mighty hero—”

“You were a paladin,” Jongdae says. “A Guardian of the Tree.” 

“Yes!” Minseok shouts, sitting straight up to stare at Jongdae. “How do you—”

Jongdae hands over his phone. The screen is filled with a photo of a massive, heavily-muscled centaur, glossy black coat spangled with stellate white patches to match the feathering on his legs and his long, flowing tail. He’s wearing plate armor over both his humanoid and equine torsos but he has his helmet tucked under his arm. The centaur’s front legs are folded beneath him as he bows before another beefy armored creature, a white tiger rakshasa who’s reaching straight out to touch the flat of a sword to the centaur’s shoulder.

The kneeling centaur’s face is exactly the same as the hamshifter’s.

“Sir Suho. And… me,” Minseok whispers, eyes fixed on the image of his former self. “How did you get this?”

“You said you didn’t have enough information to find yourself because your name was too common but I texted this wyrmkin I know anyway. He works at the central library as an archivist, and I figured if anyone could find an obituary for a centaur coldblood named Kim Minseok survived by a sister Minsoo and a nephew Daeul, it would be Luhan.”

“I still look like me,” Minseok says, touching his face on the screen.

Jongdae nods. “That makes sense if you self-incarnated. Your soul would have expected a certain face in humanoid form.”

“Do you think… could the Sisters?”

Minseok doesn’t have to finish the question for Jongdae to start shaking his head.

“Miss Taeyeon said they’d already basically broken the rules to guide you into a new body at all. And if they’d let you form your prior self, your essence wouldn’t have remembered anything of your former life.”

Jongdae taps Minseok’s forehead. “Your mind is far more important to completing your mission than the body it was in, anyway. You can contact the Guardians. Let them know what happened to you.”

“But I still don’t  _ know  _ what happened to me,” he says, tearing his eyes away from the screen to look at Jongdae with big watery eyes. “And if I was so big and strong and had divine power to call on and something still killed me, then it must be really bad, Dae.”

Minseok hugs his knees, looking so small and forlorn that Jongdae can’t help but put an arm around him. Minseok clings to him, all but climbing in his lap.

“It’ll come back to you,” Jongdae assures him, rubbing little circles over the hamshifter’s back. “Look how much you’ve remembered already. You remembered that you weren’t actually a hamster not even twenty-four hours ago, and now you know exactly who you used to be.”

“Fat lot of good it does if a puny hamster is the only one of the Guardians left,” Minseok huffs, handing the phone back to Jongdae. 

The article on the screen now details the mysterious disappearance of the Guardians of the Tree. Their numbers had evidently been dwindling for years due to retirements outnumbering new recruits, but the remaining Guardians had gone missing in action in twos and threes until the entire remaining garrison had ridden off together on a top-secret do-or-die mission.

None had returned.

“Well, fuck,” Jongdae says, setting the phone down to wrap both arms around the unhappy hamshifter. “That does make it harder. But you’ll remember, and then we’ll figure out what to do. Like the counterweights in my clockworks, there’s always enough good to balance out evil, no matter how big it may be. The pendulum will swing back into the light, and then we’ll grab hold and ride that puppy back into the darkness to kick its ass.”

Minseok huffs. “You’re pretty encouraging for someone who thinks he doesn’t care about anyone else.”

“I care about you,” Jongdae says, the words slipping from his lips before he can think about whether it’s a good idea to say such things or not.

At this, Minseok lifts his head from Jongdae’s shoulder to gaze intently at him, searching for something in the half-elf’s face. It’s such a scrutinizing stare that Jongdae feels like he’s the rodent pinned by the gaze of a predator. A predator that holds his gaze as he climbs the rest of the way into Jongdae’s lap.

“Uh,” Jongdae says, suddenly very aware he's not wearing a shirt.

“Oh,” Minseok says, ears pressing flat to the sides of his head as his face falls. 

He shifts like he’s about to move away and oh, no—Jongdae cannot stand a pouting hamster especially when he seems to be the cause. His arms wrap reflexively around Minseok’s sturdy waist, deliberately shoving out of his mind the image of the hamshifter’s toned abs flexing as he’d shaken Fairy Fluff off of himself. He may not be a burly centaur anymore, but Minseok certainly isn’t  _ puny. _ And Jongdae, like a gentleman, will hug the brave hero until he remembers this fact if that’s what Minseok needs.

“I wasn’t objecting,” Jongdae assures the guy in his lap. “I was just surprised. I’m happy to cuddle if Cuddles wants.” He smiles, hoping he’s projecting platonic bro-affection vibes instead of creepy advantage-taking ones.

Min scrunches his nose adorably at the mention of his old name. “I don’t want to cuddle,” he says, settling again on Jongdae’s thighs. “I want to make out.”

“Oh,” Jongdae says, blinking several times in a row. “Um. Well. We could go to a club or something, you’d basically have your pick—”

“I pick  _ you,” _ Minseok interrupts. “I mean. Unless you don’t want me.” He looks unsure again, as if anyone attracted to guys in general would fail to be attracted to him in particular.

“Why?” Jongdae says, rushing to clarify at the look in Minseok’s eyes. “I mean, why would you pick  _ me? _ I’m hardly top-shelf goods, and I know I told you I generally avoid helping people but I really meant it when I wrote that you can stay here without obligation of any—”

“This isn’t obligation,” Minseok interrupts with the beginnings of a scow. “Do you really think a former paladin is likely to try to pay for your kindness by offering you sex?”

“Well, no, but why else would you…?” Jongdae feels the beginnings of a blush warm his cheeks. 

“Kim Jongdae, you’re an idiot if you truly think you’re not attractive. I wasn’t just watching you build intriguing little machines for the last several weeks, you big dork, I was watching  _ you. _ How you make little noises as you work, a wordless commentary until I reminded you to talk to me. How you stick the tip of your tongue out when you’re concentrating, and how you smile so beautifully when something finally behaves how you want it to.”

He trades a bashful little smile with Jongdae. “I’m not just propositioning you because you’re convenient, Dae. I like you even if you’re rumored to be antisocial and rude.”

“Hey,” Jongdae protests, but his own smile is growing as Minseok’s grin turns wicked.

“Besides, if I’m stuck with this body now, with only four limbs and my junk all front and center where it’s most vulnerable, then I want you to show me the advantages of being this shape.”

Jongdae knows his entire face is probably crimson. He leans in and kisses Minseok anyway.

He can feel Minseok’s lips curve against his and the hamshifter makes a triumphant little noise in his throat as he presses Jongdae against the sofa. He’s got one hand on Jongdae’s bare shoulder and the other wrapped around his neck to tangle in the hair at the base of his skull. When Minseok tugs Jongdae can’t help but moan and the sneaky little rodent uses that opportunity to invade Jongdae’s mouth with his tongue as if he were waiting for exactly that reaction.

With a growl, Jongdae pushes Minseok over sideways and follows him down until the hamshifter is pinned beneath him, Jongdae’s hips between Minseok’s thighs.

“Taking it as a challenge that I said I’ve never been on my back before?” Minseok asks with a meaningful lift of his brow. 

“I don’t want you to miss out,” Jongdae answers, failing to keep the smirk off his face.

“Ah, so you’re defying the rumors now? You want to top because you’re  _ not _ selfish?”

“I’m supposed to take good care of you,” Jongdae asserts. “I’m just trying not to be turned into a toad.”

“You’d be a terrible toad,” Minseok informs him. “You seem like something that should be in the weasel family.”

Jongdae decides the solution to this slander is to trap the hamshifter’s smirk with his own grin.

It has been a truly embarrassing length of time since Jongdae’s had anyone moving beneath him and he’s beyond relieved that the soft flannel pants are equally revealing of Minseok’s arousal along with his own. Minseok feels hot and thick through the fabric and Jongdae suddenly wouldn’t mind at all if their positions were reversed. 

He’s always presented himself as preferring to top before, uninterested in guys who saw a short partner as a submissive one. Which meant he’d mostly been with women, who as a bonus were often shorter than him anyway. But for compact, muscular, shameless Minseok, Jongdae somehow knows he’d enjoy himself thoroughly in whatever position the hamshifter wanted him.

“Min,” he gasps when warm hands slide over his bare torso. 

He’s rewarded with a hungry moan from Minseok that makes Jongdae’s cock twitch against the guy’s pelvis. Minseok’s arousal kicks in response and he resumes devouring the half-elf mouth-first.

“Dae,” Minseok sighs, running his palms over Jongdae’s bare back and trapping the half-elf’s bottom lip between his teeth. “Dae, I want you so bad.”

“You have me,” Jongdae assures him. “Min, I’m all yours.”

It doesn’t matter that Jongdae’s only really known the guy for a day in humanoid form. He’d had Jongdae wrapped around his paw from the first day the half-elf had taken him home. He hadn’t wanted to make out with Cuddles the hamster of course, but he’d wanted the little guy to be happy. And he still wants Minseok to be happy. He wants the hero who’s suffered so much to have all the pleasure he can give.

“Min,” he moans again, slipping away from lips to mouth along his jawline on the way to his neck. “Let me take you to bed.”

“A bed, huh?” the hamshifter says. “I’ve never had sex in a bed before. Or face-to-face.”

“I’d be happy to help you with that,” Jongdae pants against Minseok’s skin.

“By all means,” Minseok says, pushing them both back to a sitting position. “Give me the full bipedal boning experience.”

Taking this as an invitation, Jongdae locks his arms beneath Minseok’s ass and stands up with the hamshifter in his arms, enjoying the resulting yelp of surprise. He kisses him hungrily but lets Minseok slide down his body until his feet hit the ground.

“Sorry,” he says. “If you want someone who can actually carry you to bed I recommend choosing a partner without elven blood.”

“Then I’ll carry you instead,” Minseok informs him before bending to scoop Jongdae up with one arm supporting his torso and the other beneath his knees.

Jongdae finds he doesn’t at all mind being carried off by this adorable beast.

⚙️🐹⚙️

They hit the mattress hard, both already shirtless, Minseok shoving Jongdae’s waistband down enough to fill his hand with an ass cheek. Jongdae moans into his mouth when Minseok uses his handful to pull their hips together harder and he tries to slip his own hand down the back of Min’s pants. But Minseok rolls onto his back, pulling Jongdae with him.

Jongdae leans back a little, giving Minseok a searching look. “You get to touch but you don’t want me to?”

Minseok shakes his head, cheeks pink. “My tail’s just really sensitive,” he admits. “When I washed myself in the shower, um.”

Jongdae laughs. “Enjoy exploring the new you?”

Minseok’s blush deepens. “Touch me there later. Touch me here first.” He puts Jongdae’s wandering hand on a chiseled pec and flexes the muscle beneath appreciative fingers.

Humming with satisfaction, Jongdae kisses him again, trailing his hand down to firm abs that twitch beneath his touch.

Neither of them say anything for a while, only making wet smooching sounds punctuated by little grunts and soft moans as they grind against each other and run hands over each other’s torsos.

“Dae,” Minseok huffs as Jongdae pinches his nipple. “Dae, I’m never going to last through prepping. This body’s so new to me—I've never been touched like this and I’ve only ever been with other centaurs—your ass is so firm but the bare skin is so smooth and soft and I—” His words dissolve into a yelp as Jongdae replaces his fingers with his lips. “Dae, just touch me.” He guides Jongdae’s hand to cup the front of his pants. “Let me touch you—show me how you bipeds like it.”

“Touch me and find out how we like it,” Jongdae invites.

Immediately Minseok’s shoving Jongdae’s skewed waistband down further. Jongdae lifts his hips to allow the fabric to retreat and then almost chokes when Minseok’s hand wraps around his shaft, thumb immediately smearing pre-come over the sensitive head.

“Min! Ah, Minseok!”

Minseok’s response is a smug little hum. “I was worried you wouldn’t be as sensitive since your body isn’t new and you don’t keep your dick drawn up in a protective sheath—”

“Min,  _ please,” _ Jongdae interrupts. “Can you not talk about all the horse cock you’ve delivered and/or received? You’ll give a mere biped a complex.”

Minseok laughs. “Don’t let a centaur hear you call them a horse! But there’s no reason to feel inadequate, Dae. Given the proportions of my new body, I find you to be built absolutely perfectly.”

“Okay great now can we just—” Jongdae’s babble dissolves into a moan as Minseok works him over rather well for a guy who claims to be bipedally inexperienced.

“You didn’t just explore your new tail—you played with your new dick in the shower, too,” he accuses. “No wonder you took so—” 

Minseok rolls his hips into Jongdae’s hand, reminding the distracted half-elf what he’s supposed to be doing. Jongdae hastens to get his hand down Minseok’s pants, not even bothering to push them down out of the way in favor of going straight for the goods.

And the goods are good indeed, filling his hand nicely, hot and thick enough to be interesting to imagine disappearing inside him but thankfully not distressingly centaur-proportioned. Minseok’s new dick may not come with a sheath but Jongdae slides the foreskin up and down, increasing speed and pressure as Minseok moans into his mouth and bucks into his fist.

“Dae,” he gasps. “Oh, Dae, I’m gonna—”

And then he stiffens and groans long and low, fingers tightening around Jongdae’s length reflexively. It’s so hot to watch Minseok’s handsome face as he climaxes, how his mouth falls open, his eyes squeeze shut, and his ears lift a bit as their muscles flex along with all the others in Minseok’s body.

It’s hot enough that Jongdae just has to flick his own hips a handful of times to drive his aching cock through Minseok’s tightened fist and then he’s grunting too, face buried in Minseok’s neck.

They pant into each other’s ears for several long moments. Jongdae doesn’t remember the last time he came from just a handjob. He doesn’t remember having the urge to hold his partner close after getting off. He doesn’t remember feeling so proud and happy to have made someone come, to have been the one to deliver such obvious pleasure.

He’s never felt like this ever before but he knows what it is purely by its unfamiliarity. He’s falling hard for this gorgeous hamshifter and that means he’s gonna be so fucking screwed when the former paladin recalls what killed him and takes off to rally an army to defeat it.

But for now he’s going to bask in what he can, storing up memories to relive in the upcoming cold nights when his bed again feels way too big for one person. Minseok evidently is as cuddly as his former name implied, basically draping himself over Jongdae’s sex-pliant body and immediately drifting off as soon as they’ve cleaned up. Not that Jongdae objects. And not that Jongdae’s far behind.

⚙️🐹⚙️

In the morning, Jongdae wakes to an empty bed but the sound of someone singing. It’s a nice voice, a velvety tenor that does an admirable job covering one of the popular pixie-group summer hits from a few years ago. Jongdae drags himself blearily in search of the voice, finding the hamshifter in the kitchen stirring kimchi into steaming bowls of rice.

“I evidently know how to use a rice cooker,” Minseok smiles when he sees Jongdae shuffle into the room. “So I thought I’d make myself useful.”

“You’re a man of many talents,” Jongdae mumbles sleepily as he plunks himself into a chair across from Minseok.

“As are you.” Minseok gives him a smirk and a wink along with one of the bowls and a pair of chopsticks.

Jongdae can’t stop the blush that rises to his ears. He mumbles some sort of response before scooping rice into his mouth as an excuse not to respond more articulately.

Minseok laughs. “Not a morning person?”

“Fuck, no,” Jongdae grumbles into his bowl. “I only got up so early these last months to give you your damn medicine.” 

Minseok’s laugh is really nice, so Jongdae can forgive that it’s rather louder than he likes to hear at this hour of the day.

“I appreciate your dedication to my health,” he says, starting in on his own breakfast. “I suppose I shouldn’t have eaten pineapple on pizza after all—I had weird dreams last night.”

“Oh?” Jongdae says, more alert at this news. “About what?”

“About a creepy fortress and falling out a window,” he says. “And then there was a hole in my chest. Like someone had punched through it or something.” He shudders. “I was really glad you were right there when I woke up cold and sweaty.”

Jongdae’s face heats again. “No problem,” he murmurs before stuffing a piece of kimchi into his face, letting the spicy cabbage warm his mouth to match his cheeks. “Um. What would you like to do today?”

“Besides make out with you?” Minseok asks, winking across the table at Jongdae and laughing when the half-elf has to cough up a grain of rice that threatened his airway.

“I, uh. Sort of thought that was just… a one-time thing?” 

Minseok furrows his brow, ears lowering slightly. “Why would you think that? Didn’t you like it?”

“Of course I did,” Jongdae hastens to reassure him. “I just. Thought you were giving your new body a test drive.”

Minseok throws a clump of rice at him. Jongdae has to lift a hand to keep it from hitting him in the face.

“How are you both a genius and an idiot?” Minseok asks. “I said I liked you, didn’t I? Why wouldn’t I want to keep sleeping with you?  _ Being _ with you?”

Jongdae looks down at his emptying bowl. “Well. You’re remembering everything so quickly. I just figured you’d be off doing your hero things by the end of the week. I like you, too, but I don’t expect—”

Another rice wad actually does hit him in the face this time. Grimacing, Jongdae brushes stray grains off his cheekbone as the hamshifter glares.

“I think that’s really the core of your social problems, Kim Jongdae: You don’t expect. You  _ should _ expect! It would be flat-out rude to go to bed with you as a one-time test-drive without making my intentions very clear. But I didn’t say, ‘Hey bro, show me how my new dick works just this once,’ I said things like ‘I like you’ and ‘I want you’ and you said things like ‘I’m all yours.’ So why wouldn’t you expect me to want to keep what’s mine freely given?”

Jongdae knows he’s being chastised and generally that makes him want to sink through the floor. But Minseok looks so righteous, gesturing at Jongdae with his chopsticks and using a strange mixture of formal and informal speech. And the way his ears and eyebrows seem to be connected, rising and falling in tandem as he lectures is just flat-out adorable.

“Why in hells are you grinning at me like that?”

“Sorry,” Jongdae says, a little embarrassed to have been caught making dopey eyes at someone whom he still doesn’t  _ expect _ to be serious about dating him or whatever once his heroic duties call him away. “It’s just that you’re really sexy when you alternate between frat-boy slang and fancy paladin talk.”

Minseok lifts one angled brow.

“Hey bro, you want some ass freely given?” Jongdae mocks through a grin. His grin widens when Min reaches for a wad of rice to fling only to find his bowl empty.

“All ass I’ve ever had has been freely given, and that’s the only way it should ever be,” Minseok huffs instead. “And if you’re offering yours I’m inclined to accept so you’ll be too busy moaning to sass me.”

"If you really want a round two I'm more than happy to indulge you," Jongdae says, hoping it comes out nonchalant and flirty instead of sounding like  _ oh please, please touch me again. _ "But first, don't you want to, I dunno. See if anyone knows anything about the Guardians' mission? Or maybe talk to your family?"

"Not my family," Minseok says immediately. "I'm not gonna put them through mourning for me twice. If we figure out whatever this evil is and overcome it, then perhaps I can have a reunion, even if I'm not really one of them anymore."

"Nonsense," Jongdae scoffs. "I saw the photo of your sister. You look so much alike still. Of course you're one of them—you're just going to be Weird Uncle Minseok who only has two legs but still gets invited to Chuseok anyway."

Minseok smiles, then looks a little wistful. "Chuseok's only a few months away. We'd better get down to evil-identifying business." The smile returns. "Too bad we can't get your half-celestial pal to just, like, look at everyone and say who's a bad guy."

Jongdae returns the smile but shakes his head. "Sehun can only detect truth—it's Chanyeol that sees instinctively if someone's heart holds evil. And they’re not really my pals—they’re just friendly because I bring in a lot of business."

The hamshifter's head tilts to the side. “You can’t actually have zero friends. What about that big gray dude?”

Again Jongdae shakes his head. “Kris just wants my help with his granny lift. Once he picks up the plans on Tuesday, I’ll be no further use to him.” He drops his gaze to the floor. “I’m still surprised he even asked for that. I’m, um. Kind of a dick to him, usually.”

Minseok's ears lift without his brows. It somehow makes him look more intimidating. “Well then, when he picks up the plans it’ll be the perfect opportunity for you to apologize.”

Jongdae grimaces.

“I’m serious, Dae. I know it feels super gross to do it, but you’ll feel much better afterward.” He smirks across the table. “In fact, I’ll make  _ sure _ you feel much better afterward."

Jongdae's brows lift without his ears. He’s sure he doesn’t look the least bit intimidating. "Oh.”

Minseok grins. “Oh, come on. You don’t think I’ve sucked a dick before?”

Jongdae flat refuses to think about any dicks Minseok may or may not have sucked. “I’m sure you’re great at it, please don’t give me details. I just, well. Assumed you'd be gone by then."

Minseok's eyes narrow. "Kim Jongdae, do you genuinely think I'm gonna wake up in the morning with all my knowledge back and a well-developed Plan to Save the World, then promptly march off into the sunrise, never to see you again?"

Jongdae swallows. "Um. Yes?" He catches the [thing] Minseok throws at him. "What was that for? Of course you'll go off to save the world."

"Jongdae," Minseok says flatly. "I'm a fucking hamster. Hamsters aren't exactly the world-saving type."

"Whatever, I'll make you a centaur-shaped suit of clockwork armor or something. And unlike me I'm sure you left friends behind—" The hamshifter's snarl only prods Jongdae to power on. "—so maybe if we see who wrote that article about the disappearing Guardians, they might know someone who knew you. I mean, they had to interview someone, right?"

Minseok's growling stops. "They probably did. But I can't face that alone. Paladins are good at calling on divine power to smite evil. They're not all that good at dealing with soft squishy feelings."

Jongdae snorts. "Like I'm any better. But I'll hold your hand and pretend not to notice when you cry."

"See? You're already the best boyfriend I've ever had."

"B-boy—"

"Dae, unless you don't want to be with me, you're gonna have to get over this whole 'but why would anyone like me?' idiocy complex thing you've got going on. Stop looking for reasons why it's not gonna work out and just enjoy it, okay?"

Jongdae opens his mouth, then shuts it. Minseok's smile is soft and Jongdae really wants to kiss it. Which he's totally allowed to do, seeing as Min's his boyfriend.

"Okay," he agrees. Then he lets himself lean in and suck the hamshifter's lower lip into his mouth.

It takes them rather a long while to leave the house. First, Minseok makes such fascinating noises when his lips and nipples are sucked that Jongdae has to suck his cock, too, earning an entirely new symphony of sounds (some of which are high-pitched enough to potentially belong to Minseok's other form). Then, ever the eager explorer of the new bipedal life he's been granted, Minseok returns the favor in the shower, daring to slide a slippery finger inside Jongdae at the same time to ensure the half-elf sings his absolute loudest surrounded by tile and chrome.

Then, spoiled by choice, Minseok is way too cutely enthusiastic about choosing which "cute little biped clothes" he wants to wear—and which ones he wants Jongdae to wear. And finally, Jongdae has to call the newspaper the article about the Guardians was printed in and schedule a time to meet with the journalist who'd written it.

"I don't think we should tell the reporter who you are," Jongdae cautions when he ends the call. "I mean, he seems to be really sincere rather than malicious. But it's probably not wise to reveal that anyone survived, in case the evil is something that reads newspapers. Surprise is probably our greatest ally at this point, right?"

"For now," Minseok agrees. "But when this is over I want the whole story to be told. To everyone. Everywhere. My fallen brethren should be remembered, and other newspaper-reading evil needs to be put on alert."

Jongdae smiles. "Of course, Cuddles.”

Minseok scowls. "Must you call me that?"

"It’s a cute name, and you’re cute," Jongdae laughs. "Plus your nose wrinkles up adorably whenever I call you that."

"I'm gonna make your face wrinkle with my fist," Minseok threatens under his breath.

Jongdae can only grin at him as they head off to meet the reporter.

⚙️🐹⚙️

The reporter, Byun Baekhyun, turns out to be a pixie. He works the keys of his laptop like a human might work the pads of a dancing arcade game, hopping rapidly and rhythmically, iridescent wings fluttering to provide balance or extra lift when needed.

“The Guardians of the Tree were almost legendary in life, so it’s not too surprising they faded directly into mythos,” Baekhyun says, pausing to blow a lock of fluffy pink hair out of his face. “But they must have been combating something dangerous! With them gone, shouldn’t we feel vulnerable? Shouldn’t the other paladin orders try to help? Why doesn’t anyone  _ care?” _

“Paladins are very prideful,” Minseok sighs. “W—uh,  _ they _ probably believed they could take care of things themselves.”

“Well, it would have been polite of them to leave a note or something,” the pixie grumbles. “I mean, if I so much as flit out for some meringue without texting my wife, I hear about it for  _ weeks.” _

“But you must have found someone who at least knew something,” Jongdae asks. “I mean, how did anyone know that the Guardians were missing? Did their electric bill come due or something?”

Baekhyun snorts, bending to manipulate the eraser-sized pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard. “No, they probably have automatic bill pay like everyone else these days. It was their acolyte—he hadn’t been invested yet, so they left him behind.”

The pixie chuckles as he clicks on a file. “Cute little thing. A young minotaur named—”

“Taozi,” Minseok breathes. His hand is suddenly twined with Jongdae’s, squeezing tight. 

Baekhyun looks pleased, puffing out his chest and fluttering his wings. “Ah, so you did read the article. But you’re almost right—he gave his name as one Huang Zitao. He reported the disappearances, and once their leader failed to be scryable by the authorities, the Guardians of the Tree were declared martyred and the charter disbanded. The stirk went back to his family, so far as I know.”

Jongdae glances at Minseok, whose blank face isn’t hiding his watering eyes. Turning his own eyes to the pixie once again, Jongdae attempts a friendly you-can-trust-me smile. “I don’t suppose you know where his family lives? Or have this Zitao’s contact information?”

Baekhyun shakes his head, pink hair bouncing around. “I didn’t ask specifically—I’d gotten what I could from the stirk, so I didn’t need to keep in touch. But the yellow minotaurs have an enclave in Keyflower Crossing. Maybe he ended up there.”

Jongdae thanks Baekhyun profusely, complimenting the quality of his writing effusively to make the pixie preen. Then he drags a still-silent Minseok out of there as quickly as is polite before the hamshifter crushes his fingers to goo.

“Taozi,” Minseok says when they get outside, voice sounding as broken as Jongdae’s fingers feel. “Our little yellow peach. He must feel so lost without his Mama Tiger.”

“But we’ll find him,” Jongdae says, squirming around on the sidewalk until he’s got Minseok’s arms around his torso instead, sacrificing his ribs to save the dexterity that is his livelihood. “We’ll go to Keyflower Crossing. There can’t be that many Zitaos that went off to become a paladin and came home again uninvested.”

“He begged me to invest him,” Minseok whispers. “Sir Suho wouldn’t do it—he was always so protective. Said he wasn’t ready. But Tao was a good fighter. Brave. He’d have stood his ground, fought to the death like the rest of us must have done.”

“Then… you saved his life by refusing to invest him.”

Minseok nods against Jongdae’s shoulder. “At the time, it felt like I’d killed him. To leave him behind like that, when he wanted so much to be one of us.”

“He was one of you,” Jongdae soothes, rubbing Minseok’s back as the hamshifter presses wet eyes against his neck. “He’ll be so glad to see you.”

“I hope so. He’s the cutest little thing, Dae. Very fierce.” 

Minseok’s voice holds more fondness than sorrow, so Jongdae deems it safe to lead the hamshifter toward the bus station, keeping his arm around Minseok’s sturdy waist. There’s something strangely satisfying about the fact that Minseok clings to him, turns to Jongdae for comfort even though the half-elf isn’t a good fighter, brave, or fierce. He’s just a nerd who plays with gears, but this adorable badass needs him anyway.

For a little longer, at least. It’s going to suck when he delivers Minseok to this Zitao and they can comfort each other. Of course Jongdae’s happy to have found someone who’s actually qualified to help the hamshifter kick bad-guy ass, but it was nice to feel a little bit like a hero. Soon he’ll have to step back, playing the role of the supportive boyfriend as the actual heroes go off to do their jobs.

He just hopes to all the divinity in the world that Minseok comes back this time.

⚙️🐹⚙️

  
  



	4. The Will Is Not Enough

⚙️🐹⚙️

Keyflower Crossing is absolutely  _ full _ of minotaurs. Oh, sure, the other assorted varieties of sentient beings are there, too, including the ones too large to be comfortable in the confines of a city. Jongdae tries not to stare at the sphinx father herding his cubs through the street or the ogress couple holding hands. He’s always sort of wondered how they manage to kiss with all those big protruding teeth but he’s sure as all hells not going to ask.

Minseok had remained pensive on the almost two-hour bus ride, cuddling close to Jongdae and gazing out the window as the scenery slid from urban to rural. As they step out of the bus depot, he twines his fingers through Jongdae’s as usual, although this time the hand in his is clammy with sweat.

“What if he’s mad?” Minseok asks as Jongdae leads them through the quiet town, checking the directions on his phone to make sure they’re going the right way. “What it he wishes it had been Sir Suho who came back?”

“You talk about him as if you love him,” Jongdae offers. “And anyone you loved would surely love you in return.”

This earns a wan smile. “Why is it so easy for you to say such cheesy things? Nobody actually talks like that.”

Jongdae shrugs, smiling back although he feels his cheeks heat. “Why is it so easy for you to sit on a guy’s lap and declare you want to make out?”

“You’re really cute,” Minseok answers. “I couldn’t resist.”

“There you go,” Jongdae states. “That’s my answer, too.”

Minseok reaches over to gently punch Jongdae’s shoulder with the hand not holding his. “Cheesy,” he says again.

“Hamsters like cheese.”

“That’s mice, you dummy.”

“Cuddles ate plenty of cheese,” Jongdae reminds him. “You’d store it in your cheeks so long it would melt, then drool melted cheese on yourself. It was so cute that you’d look so embarrassed afterwards, fussing over your fur to get all the mess out.” Jongdae laughs. “Such a fastidious rodent.”

“Shut up,” Minseok says, slugging him again. 

Jongdae is saved from further punishment by their arrival at the Keyflower library, and he swallows his coo as the hamshifter’s ears prick and his lips form a little circle, showing off his front teeth.

“I didn’t know where else to go to ask about Zitao. The Keyflower phone directory is full of Huangs, but I thought the librarian might know him? Or there might be a news article about him going off to join you guys, or coming back, or…” Jongdae trails off with a shrug. It’s not like they can just stand on a street corner and ask the sporadic passersby if they know a particular minotaur and have any real chance of a useful result.

“It’s as good a place to start as any,” Minseok says, mirroring Jongdae’s shrug.

Inside the library is cool and quiet, that comforting smell of books filling the air. Jongdae can see Minseok’s nose attempt to wiggle as he sniffs and the half-elf once again has to smother a coo. 

The librarian on duty is a cyclops, single eye focused on the computer screen in front of him. The three of them trade greetings, then Jongdae shifts his weight self-consciously as he tries to figure out how to ask about the guy they’re looking for. But evidently Minseok’s moment of self-doubt is over, because he smiles at the cyclops, turning up the charm.

“I used to work with a yellow minotaur but we lost touch a few months ago. I think he lives around here and I was wondering if you could help me find him?”

The cyclops rolls his eye. “Do you think I just happen to know every minotaur in the county? You’re gonna have to give me some information before I can give you any. And I can only help you use public resources—I ain’t no private eye.”

Jongdae tries really hard not to think about a cyclops private eye, biting the inside of his cheek as Minseok bats his eyes and pricks his ears and is generally adorable.

“I wouldn’t want to violate anyone’s privacy,” Minseok assures the librarian. “But we were close before the, um. Accident. And I’m afraid he’s worried about me. His name’s Huang Zitao, he’s a martial artist and last I heard he was training to be a paladin.”

“Age?” the cyclops asks, typing away at his computer.

“Uh. He was about three years younger than me. So… born in ninety-three?”

More typing, then the cyclops scribbles some numbers on an index card before handing it over.

“There are three high schools, and their yearbooks are part of our public record. Those are the decimal classification numbers for the year he’d have graduated, but if you’re not sure of his age check the years on either side. Once you know what school he went to, I’d suggest you go ask there. The school itself probably has policies about giving out information on former students, but there might be an alumni association or something that could help.”

Minseok bows a hasty thanks before dragging Jongdae off to the shelves, scampering back and forth just like Cuddles at the top of his cage before the hamshifter finally locates the correct section. The yearbook rosters for the graduating classes list a bunch of Huangs, of course, but only two Zitaos. Minseok’s face falls when he flips to the photo of the first candidate.

“Is this him?” Jongdae asks, holding up the yearbook he’d been searching. Smiling proudly from the page is a slim minotaur that Jongdae could perhaps see as handsome, if someone were into rather bovine faces.

“Taozi,” Minseok says, reaching for the book. 

Jongdae hands it over and Minseok just pets the page for a moment. “He looks so young,” the hamshifter finally whispers.

“He was young,” Jongdae agrees. “But that was more than half a decade ago. He’s an adult now, and he’s the best chance you have of figuring out what happened to you. To all of you.”

Minseok nods, galvanized once again. He takes a photo of the image with Jongdae’s phone, then one of the publisher’s information. A few phone calls later, Minseok’s on the line with the head of the alumni association.

“Zitao?” the woman asks, Jongdae leaning close to hear. “He went away to study martial arts or something years ago. But his parents are still in town. I’m not at liberty to give out personal information, but if you give me your name and number I can pass it along. Whether they call you or not is up to them, of course.”

It’s more than they expected so they thank her sincerely, reshelving the books neatly before heading out. Evidently the alumni woman made good on her promise quickly, because they’re barely out of the building before Jongdae’s phone rings.

Minseok dives for it, answering it and identifying himself. There’s a brief pause, then the hamshifter crumples, crouching on the pavement with his free hand over his face.

“Taozi,” he sobs. “Taozi, I missed you.”

Jongdae squats, too, putting an arm around Minseok’s shoulders. The hamshifter leans into the embrace but Jongdae can’t hear anything of the minotaur’s words with Minseok mashing the phone against his silvery ear like he’s maybe trying to shove the whole thing inside.

He gets the gist that they’re arranging a meeting at a nearby park, though, so he merely holds Minseok’s hand like a good boyfriend while the former paladin pokes at the phone’s map and leads Jongdae off.

⚙️🐹⚙️

Huang Zitao turns out to be a tall, wiry minotaur with a creamy yellow pelt and expressive dark eyes. Those eyes are roaming the park looking for someone, but of course he doesn’t recognize the hamshifter even after Minseok calls his name with breathless reverence. His eyes land on Minseok, bounce away dismissively, then snap back, looking the hamshifter—and the half-elf beside him—up and down appraisingly before once again focusing on Minseok’s face.

“Minseok... ge?”

“Taozi,” Minseok says again, craning up at the guy who’s at least half a meter taller than he is. “TaoTao. You look so thin.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t been working out—hey wait. How do I know you’re really Minseok and not some creep who like, stole his face? You’re so tiny! What happened to you? What happened to Suho-ge? And the others—” The minotaur’s ears twirl. “What’s the passphrase?”

“The passphrase?” Minseok says softly, ears lifting. “Oh! ‘Even after long winter nights, eventually the sun is rising.’”

Zitao shakes his bovine head. “That was the one from four months ago. Suho-ge changed it right before you all left me there alone.”

Minseok’s face crumples. “Sir Suho…”

Jongdae goes to wrap his arms around the distraught hamshifter but the minotaur is faster.

“Min-ge,” Zitao says softly, lifting Minseok off the ground completely and chuckling at the smaller guy’s yelp. “Nobody calls him Sir Suho but you.”

Minseok makes little mournful sounds, going limp in the minotaur’s arms as Zitao murmurs to him soothingly. Seeing as he’s no longer needed, Jongdae puts both his hands in his pockets and shuffles off a little, looking for a bench to sit down on or something. But he’s not too far away to miss hearing his own name.

“—and then Jongdae—Jongdae?”

Jongdae lifts his head, turning slightly to look back at the reunited pair over his shoulder.

“Jongdae!” Minseok tugs at his elbow. “Where are you going? Come meet my tiny little Taozi.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Jongdae protests but he doesn’t resist as he’s escorted to be officially introduced to a guy he wouldn’t describe as  _ tiny _ or  _ little. _

“You’re not intruding! You’re essential. To our plan, and to me.”

Blushing, Jongdae trades bows amiably with the lanky bovid. “I’m hardly essential,” he demurs. 

“You are. You promised me a badass clockwork suit.”

“You don’t need that,” Jongdae laughs. “You have Zitao here. You said he’s brave and a good fighter.”

But the minotaur shakes his big yellow head. “I’m brave, not stupid,” he says. “Whatever’s in the Bleakbone Mountains emptied three villages and a monastery before anyone even noticed. Then when the Guardians were notified and began investigating, it picked them off in twos and threes—these were hardy, experienced campaigners. And then when the garrison left for the final assault, it pasted them all—A coldblood centaur, a white tiger rakshasa, ogres, a bugbear—all heavily armed and armored, divinely gifted, and highly trained.”

Tao’s ears droop as he sighs. “One uninvested minotaur is hardly going to triumph alone. We need a fucking  _ army.” _

“Oh,” Jongdae says. “Well, surely if we tell the authorities—”

“The paladinic orders  _ are  _ the authorities,” Minseok says. “Nobody’s better equipped to counter evildoers—we had divine justice on our side.” 

Zitao nods. “We were it. The only supernatural defenders in the area. And while we could call in other orders to help, we’d only be sending them to their deaths unless we could tell them what exactly they’d be up against. And we can’t. No one came back except Min-ge, and he doesn’t remember.”

“He’s remembering more and more all the time, though,” Jongdae protests. “Especially if he hears or sees something from before. So if we just take him to these mountains—” 

Minseok shakes his head, smiling wanly. “I’m remembering more and more about those I care about. My childhood. Not my work, and especially not my—when I got recycled. My mind seems to slide away from those thoughts.”

Jongdae frowns. “Like something’s blocking your memory? A curse?”

Again the hamshifter shakes his head. “I think there’s just some cowardly part of me that doesn’t  _ want _ to remember, Dae.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to remember?” Jongdae asks, feeling his brow furrow. “I mean, you came back because you had unfinished business. If you’re here to finish it, why wouldn’t you be eager to remember your purpose?”

“Because then I have to go off and face it, and I already failed once. I don’t want to die again, or lose more people I care about. If I don’t remember it, then I can just… stay with you.”

Jongdae’s mouth opens and shuts several times, thoughts failing to make themselves opaque.

“Awww,” Zitao coos before cutting the sound off abruptly. “But no. I’m glad you found someone, Min-ge, but save the world first, canoodle later. If you just close your mind to your duty, the evil will spread. More villages will be wiped out. And then whatever’s happening to the villages will start happening in the city and you won’t be able to cuddle your tiny little elf boy anyway.”

“Half-elf,” Jongdae mutters. “But Zitao—Sir Zitao?” He shoots an apologetic glance to the minotaur, unsure of how to address him.

“Just Tao’s fine. I was never invested and even if I had been, we never really stood on ceremony anyway except for Min-ge.”

“Er, right,” Jongdae bobs his head gratefully. “But Tao is right. Saving the world—or at least our corner of it—is much more noble and important than hanging around with me of all people. Once you kick evil ass and return triumphant, you’ll be able to cuddle any—”

“Kim Jongdae, if you finish that sentence with ‘anyone you want’ we are going to have  _ words.” _

Tao bursts into giggles that are twice as sweet for coming from a bovid throat. “He  _ says _ words, but he really means punching.”

“I have noticed his tendency for punching,” Jongdae grumbles. “I assumed it was because he didn’t have hooves anymore to kick me with.”

“Hey!”

“So to avoid punching I’ll just say ‘anytime you want.’”

Minseok glowers at both minotaur and half-elf for a moment, then slumps his shoulders. “I will try harder to remember,” he sighs. “I know my duty, and duty before dishonor. But I refuse to march off to my doom a second time, so we need to figure out what the fuck is lurking in the Bleakbones and how exactly to take it out.”

“I can ask my dad at dinner,” Jongdae offers.

The only thing cuter than Minseok’s ears pricking in interest are Minseok’s ears doing so right alongside Tao’s.

"I, uh. Called him. After you showed me the letter. We're having dinner next week."

"Good," Minseok nods. "I'm curious to meet him, anyway."

Jongdae rubs the back of his neck. “Er, yeah. I guess you could come with me.”

"Do you not want me to meet him?" Minseok asks cautiously.

"No—I mean you can, it's fine.”  _ Awkward as hell, but fine. _ “It’s actually probably better if you’re there so we can ask the right questions. He’s an archdruid. He knows about, like, nature and stuff. And he talks to animals and shit. Maybe he can send his bratty bat to fly around and look for something extra-creepy in the Bleakbones.”

The pair blink at him. Then they both start talking at once, grabbing Jongdae’s arms and jumping around.

“Whoa, whoa. I am basically the opposite of a druid, much to my dad’s disappointment. I have no real idea what he can or can’t do. I just play with gears, okay? I don’t even have my own magic.”

This earns him a hamstery frown.

“Dae, you don’t  _ just _ play with gears. You’re brilliant. You don’t  _ need _ your own magic, because you have the skill and intelligence to design awesome things and the wisdom to buy already-enchanted parts when you happen to need them.”

“That sounds really cool,” Tao says. “Being an archdruid sounds cool, too. All paladins do is hit things.”

“We do not just hit things!” Minseok protests.

Tao raises an eyebrow at him.

“…Okay, we do hit things a lot of the time. But we also strategize! And rescue! And protect!”

“Yes, yes we do. Mostly by hitting things.” Tao laughs at Minseok’s scowl. “Neither of us are actually paladins, anyway, so we’d probably better learn to do something else.”

“Well. If you have the divine spark that would have allowed you to become a paladin, you’d be a better druid than I ever could,” Jongdae says. “If you want, you can come to dinner with us and ask him about it. I’m sure my dad will be thrilled to have an animal shifter and a divinely-gifted to talk shop with.” 

It’s cowardly to hide behind such nice, friendly people to avoid having to actually talk with his father, but Jongdae can hardly believe that he’d agreed to have dinner with the man. The closer the event looms, the more regrets he has, but for Minseok, to help Minseok, Jongdae will grit his teeth and tough it out.

⚙️🐹⚙️

He grits his teeth through delivering the plans to Kris, too, and the apology that comes along with them. Minseok’s standing right beside him, looking at Jongdae expectantly, so it’s not like he can slither out of it. But it’s made worse by the fact that Kris’s uncle and his grandmother are standing right beside  _ him, _ so Jongdae’s basically apologizing to three generations, each getting bigger and bigger, from quarter- to half- to full-blood stone giant.

It’s fine. They probably won’t smash him to goo right here on the street corner in broad daylight when he admits to tormenting their precious baby boy.

“The plans are all there, materials specifications and everything, ready for the smith. I had Borderline Bits order in the flywheels you’ll need—just tell them I sent you and they’ll set you up.” Jongdae proffers the rolled-up schematics with what he hopes is a smile and not a grimace.

“Aw, thanks, Jongdae,” Kris says with an actual smile that still looks a little weird on a face Jongdae usually sees scowling at him. “How much do we owe you?”

_ Here we go. _ Jongdae takes a deep breath. “Nothing—it’s my treat. Please consider it an apology. For all the times I tested prototypes on you.”

Kris’s uncle tilts his head. “You’re the one that set the seat of his pants on fire?”

Jongdae nods, eyes down. He knew that Kris’s giant blood would prevent him from getting burns—it’s awfully hard to set a rock on fire, and stone giant skin is somehow infused with the stuff they’re named for—but he hadn’t considered that his pants and underwear would burn through, leaving him to walk home bare-assed if not for the repurposing of his shirt, resulting in Jongdae fleeing from an irate, topless stone giant blushing like pink granite from ears to nipples.

“And made him into squirrel chow?”

Jongdae nods again, cringing despite Minseok’s hand in his. He’d been testing out a viscous-fluid delivery system, using honey as his harmless test liquid of choice, and followed that up with a test fire of his beanbag cannon, loading the cloth bag with sunflower seeds instead of the intended buckshot—he hadn’t actually wanted to hurt the quarter-giant. But the cannon had still been calibrated for the buckshot’s heavier weight—an amateur mistake he shouldn’t have made—and the beanbag had exploded out of the cannon, spraying the sunflower seeds to stick in the honey Kris had just been coated in.

Which would have been merely awkward had it not been for the birds. And the squirrels.

They’d chased after Kris as he’d chased after Jongdae, and the last he’d seen of the livid gray guy that morning had been him going down beneath a flurry of flapping wings and fuzzy tails. And the next time he’d seen him, his face had been covered in Rilakkuma bandages.

Evidently, squirrel teeth are tough enough to chew through stone. And that of course hadn’t been what Jongdae’d intended to happen, but who knows these things?

(Jongdae’s dad. Jongdae’s dad knows these things. The dad Jongdae hadn’t talked to in years and certainly hadn’t asked about the dangers of squirrels+sunflower seeds+quarter-stone-giant skin.)

Jongdae jumps when a sound like grating stone escapes the tallest of the stone giants standing in front of him. He lifts startled eyes up (and up and up) just in time to see Kris’s grandmother slap her knee with one massive palm.

Then, before anyone can react, she scoops Jongdae up in said massive palms, causing his life to flash before his eyes—and then she kisses him. His entire face at once. She’s laughing so hard she’s crying and she cuddles Jongdae to her cheek, soaking him in granny-giant tears.

Jongdae is so shocked he may as well be stone himself.

He can hear Minseok laughing, too, and Kris’s uncle, and eventually Kris himself before Jongdae is finally set down, damp and bewildered, trying not to guess if he’d pissed himself or if he had granny tears on his crotch.

“My nephew tries to be the cool city guy all the time. We’re glad he has a friend that can remind him not to take himself so seriously.” Kris’s uncle pulls what initially looks like a sheet of printer paper from his wallet, handing it to Jongdae. “That’s my business card—call me any time if you need any custom tinkering parts and I’ll give you the friends-and-family discount. And don’t worry—I may look like an oaf but I’ve got delicate fingers. I can make tiny little things just as well as these big ol’ cogs to hoist my mama up her mountain.” 

“Er, thanks,” Jongdae says, because what other response is there? “That’s really generous of you, Mister Wu.”

“Call me Uncle,” the half-giant says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Mama, pay the boy and let’s go. We’ve got forging to do.”

Minseok is still laughing ten minutes later, curled into a very hamster-like ball on the pavement. But that’s probably because Jongdae is still standing on the corner like a soggy statue, holding a huge business card in one hand and a huge wad of cash in the other, blinking stupidly at the clear blue sky.

⚙️🐹⚙️

The experience of taking Tao and Minseok to dinner with his father—like the experience of (attempting to) apologize to Kris—will probably be something his older self will look back on with much amusement. But in the moment, it feels an awful lot like wrangling a pair of overexcited schoolchildren on the world’s most questionable field trip.

First, there’s the fact that his father’s preferred method of travel is by plant. Having a smiling, dimpled man cheerfully pop out of the nearest tree to hug and kiss all three of them before anyone can recover from their startle is already a story someone might feel the need to relate to the police. But after the bowing and introductions and the “please, just call me Yixing,” the archdruid offers his waggling fingertips along with another harmless-looking smile.

“Everyone hold hands, please—wouldn’t want to lose any of you in the Wild Green Yonder!”

Instead of fleeing the vicinity with cries of ‘stranger danger,’ Jongdae’s guests agreeably link hands. Tao’s suppressing the enthusiasm of a child offered a trip to the candy store, Minseok’s holding Tao’s huge hand indulgently and Jongdae’s smaller one firmly, and that leaves the half-elf to man up and clasp arms with the pureblood elf who sired him.

Jongdae can’t keep his face from screwing up as his father pulls them all into the tree. He hates the sensation of being drawn thin like the finest root filament and then thickening back up into a sturdy trunk but he’s still clasping Minseok’s hand like a lifeline when his father pulls him out of the trunk of the live oak that anchors the druid’s private grove.

“—cool!” Tao is saying as he’s drawn forth after Minseok, looking around with his jaw dropped in awe.

The druid chuckles. “I apologize for the abruptness of our introduction. I feel uneasy surrounded by cement and steel rather than stone and sky, so I tend not to linger overlong.”

“It is very kind of you to invite us to your sacred home,” Minseok says with another bow, slipping easily into his fancy paladin speech. “We are very honored.”

“Oh, none of that, please,” the druid dismisses. “You are friends of my son. And though we have not been close these last years, at least as a child Jongdae did not make friends lightly. If he trusts you, then you are as family to him, and thus are like family to me.”

He beckons for the trio to take seats beside the table grown of aromatic pine, young saplings bent and interwoven as they grew to create a living surface dressed with moss. Jongdae drops to sit cross-legged in the soft grass beside Minseok, trying not to wince as his father lowers himself to sit opposite, giving his son a sad-eyed smile.

“Jongdae. My heart is full just to have you here. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to apologize—”

“Don’t,” Jongdae says, face hot. “Don’t do that. We both know it’s my duty to apologize, not yours. I was a brat—I  _ am _ a brat. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not calling sooner. For ignoring you.” He’s grateful for the fingers Minseok twines into his under the table.

“Seems only fair,” his father chuckles. “I did an excellent job of ignoring  _ you. _ I was a terrible father to you, Jongdae. A brat of a son would only be what I deserve, but you were never that.”

“I was,” Jongdae insists. “I should have tried harder. I’m sorry I couldn’t live up to the path you wanted for me.” 

“Balderdash,” his father dismisses. “I’m the one that should have tried harder. If ever a child feels like a disappointment, it is the parent who has failed. I can’t alter the past, Jongdae. But perhaps together we can alter the future? I’d like to truly know my son. The man he  _ is, _ not the one I foolishly pushed him to become.”

“That sounds nice,” Jongdae admits. “But you don’t have to call me ‘Jongdae.’ You can use my real name.”

“Your real name is the one you prefer to be called,” Jongdae’s father states firmly. “Now then, let’s not delay dinner any further for an old elf’s sentimentality.” 

With a gesture from the druid, the trees around them bend and stretch and baskets of fruits, bread, squash, and rice are placed on the table, one of which also contains a non-plant passenger.

“Jason,” the druid chides gently. “You are being rude in front of guests.”

The large flying fox spits a lychee seed at Jongdae before clambering over the table to cling to the druid’s flowing green robes. Jongdae would have been hit in the face by the projectile if Tao hadn’t stretched an arm out past Minseok to snatch the seed out of the air, making the half-elf blink in astonishment.

“Rude indeed,” the minotaur declares, but Jongdae’s shaking his head.

“Jason knows I don’t belong here,” he demurs. “I understand. I’m not staying long,” he tries to assure his father’s bonded companion. 

Avoiding the lychees, Jongdae starts to fill Minseok’s plate. Evidently Tao has the same idea because soon the laughing hamshifter’s plate is overflowing.

“Guys, I can’t eat all of this! And I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself.” Minseok fends off further additions to his plate.

“They clearly honor you,” the druid laughs. “And so do I. Please enjoy all you wish. I would apologize for the lack of meat but I’m not actually sorry and the rice is a magibotanical hybrid with vastly multiplied bioavailable protein, so please, dig in.”

“I’m not complaining to be at a vegetarian table,” Tao laughs, filling his own plate instead of Minseok’s. 

Jongdae adds some food to his own plate, blushing when Minseok moves some of the excess on his over to the half-elf’s. When everyone is chewing happily (including Jason, who is now munching on a rambutan), Jongdae’s father gives him a wry smile.

“So. I am happy to see you in any circumstance, my boy, but you may as well tell me why you’re really here.”

Guilt crawls from Jongdae’s gut to darken his cheeks. “I originally called you because Minseok missed his family and pointed out that mine was right there and I had no appreciation,” he says, hating that their as-yet-unasked questions make it look like they’re using the archdruid. “I only met Zitao after we arranged to meet, and he’s the one that led us to believe you might be able to help Minseok.”

The druid’s smile is broad. “I see. I am happy to offer what help I can, but I’m entirely at a loss as to who your friends are or how I may possibly assist.”

Minseok launches into explanations, aided by Jongdae or Zitao when his own memories fail him. The archdruid nods sagely as he chews, encouraging further elaborations with noises of inquiry.

At one point, Jason trills up at the elf, who drops his gaze to the giant fruit bat still clinging to his chest. “A hamster is a small animal—perhaps the size of a mango. No, it is not a fruit. No, you cannot eat it.” 

Minseok chuckles at this. “If he doesn’t try to eat me, I won’t try to eat him.”

Jason eyes the hamshifter for a moment, then nods, earning a smile from the druid.

It takes basically the entire dinner, but eventually they’ve given the archdruid all the information they have.

“Well. Jason’s eyesight is very keen. I certainly could ask him to fly around and take a look. But it would help if we knew anything at all about what to look  _ for.” _

“What about a fortress?” Jongdae suggests, shrugging when this draws curious stares. “Minseok dreamt about falling out of a fortress. Maybe it was really a memory.”

Minseok shudders. “I hope not.”

“Did you have any impression of what this fortress looked like? Round, angular, dark, light, steel, glass?”

The hamshifter hums around his next mouthful of rice. He’s not putting anything into his cheek pouches this time, just swallowing as he chews. And he’s chewing contemplatively at the moment, closing his eyes as if he could see back into his dream that way.

“Angular, but not square. Grayish, I think? Made of… stone?”

The minotaur snorts. “So, basically invisible then,” he huffs. “The whole of the Bleakbone mountains could be described that way.”

The archdruid nods, handing Jason a plum when the creature squeaks. “Do not spit or throw that pit at anyone,” he murmurs to his suddenly innocent-looking companion, then lifts his gaze to Minseok. “Can you tell me more about this dream?”

Minseok shrugs. “I had a hole in my chest and I was falling from a window. Which, now that I know that I was a big beefy centaur at the time I, er, got recycled, makes me think it must have just been a dream. I mean, how does a centaur fall out a window?”

“How, indeed?” Jongdae’s father hums.

He gestures again and the trees of the grove creak and sway. A moment later, another basket appears, this one containing colorful dried mushrooms. The druid swats away Jason’s clawed wing when it stretches toward the basket, then smiles when he sees the wary gazes of his guests.

“Don’t look at me like that—I raised Jongdae to say no to drugs, I’m hardly going to offer some to his new friend.”

“Boyfriend,” Minseok corrects, reaching for Jongdae’s hand again.

The druid inclines his head in apology. “I stand corrected. These mushrooms aren’t psychoreactive, they’re merely soporifics. Consumed before bed, they will help you sleep and make your dreams more vivid. More memorable.” He tucks some into a rice-paper envelope he produces from a fold of his robe. “Just one per night, not more than three nights in a row, and don’t be sharing these with anyone, including my son. These are not recreational!”

“Zitao, if you can just zoom my maps application in to where you think the Guardians marched off to—don’t give me that look, young stirk, of course I have a smartphone! Who doesn’t, in this day and age? I’m a druid, not a luddite.”

“I meant no offense!” Zitao says, accepting the smartphone and swiping at the map to show the suspected location. “I was just wondering how you keep it charged.”

“Solar power, of course,” the archdruid answers. “The same energy that powers all my leafy friends.”

At the fruit bat’s squawk, the druid sighs and pets it soothingly. “Of course you’re my friend too. Yes, the closest one. Of course I love you. I’m not answering that. I said I’m not answering that! Because I lose either way—if I say I love him more, you’ll sulk. If I say I love you more, you’ll gloat. And either way you’ll try to throw things at him again—there is no need for rivalry. My heart is big enough for both of you.”

Jongdae sighs into the last of his rice, ignoring the snickering hamshifter beside him. 

⚙️🐹⚙️

It turns out when Jongdae’s father said  _ vivid, _ he really meant  _ 3D HD VR experience involving innocent by-sleepers.  _ Jongdae is woken by a kick to the shin, a punch to the ribs, and a heart-rending scream. 

“Suho! No,  _ no, Suho! _ Max, we have to— _ Max!  _ Yunho!  _ Suho!” _

“Minseok!” Jongdae shouts, trying to keep himself from being kneed in the junk. “Min, wake up!”

Even in this non-centaurian form Minseok is a powerhouse and Jongdae elects to vacate the bed in favor of turning on the light, darting to the bathroom for a cup of water, and tossing it in Minseok’s screaming face. With a final flail Minseok wakes, sputtering, to sit up in bed and scrub his eyes with his fists.

“Sorry,” Jongdae says when the hamshifter blinks blearily up at him. “I didn’t know how else to wake you up.”

“Fuck,” Minseok gasps, voice broken. 

Suddenly he’s not a dangerous warrior hero but just a soggy hamshifter in smiley face boxers and Jongdae all but dives back into bed to gather him close, heedless of the lingering damp.

“Min,” he murmurs, squeezing tighter as his brave boyfriend burrows his face into the crook of Jongdae’s neck. “Minseok. Memory or not, you’re here now and you’re fine, okay? I’ve got you. You’re fine.”

“Fuck,” Minseok says again, spitting the word through tears. “Fuck, Dae. They fucking stole their hearts! Mine, too—both of them. Just punched in and yanked them right from my fucking chest, Dae!”

Jongdae suppresses a shudder and presses Minseok hard against him. “I’m so sorry, Min,” he murmurs. “Whoever they are, we’ll figure out how to get them. They’re going down, okay? And we’ll make a proper memorial for your fellow paladins.”

“That murderer,” Minseok growls. “That fucking  _ gluebag. _ There were so many—the villages! Fuck, those innocents—the holy monks. The village children! Someone’s making an army, Dae. Powered by stolen hearts.”

“An army of what?”

“Stone men,” Minseok says. “Not elementals, not  _ alive, _ but animated. Like zombies, but carved from stone. Mindless. Indestructible. Obedient. Heartless, except they  _ have _ hearts. Stolen ones. Still beating, Dae.”

“We’ll stop them,” Jongdae soothes despite the fact that he has no fucking clue how to stop an army of indestructible stone zombies. “Whoever’s stealing these hearts from innocents, we’ll find them and we’ll stop them.”

“We  _ tried  _ to stop them.” Minseok’s voice is a mournful whisper. “We fought so hard, Dae. I had this massive warhammer, enchanted and powerful and divinely connected to me, I could channel righteous power through it and when I swung it into one my fucking hammer shattered like glass. Like fucking  _ glass, _ Dae. My armor—dwarven forged, rune-scribed adamantine. And those stone fingers punched through like paper.”

“We’ll figure it out, Min,” Jongdae promises, rocking them back and forth. “We’ll ask the Sisters. My dad. The guys at Borderline. Hell, we’ll ask fucking  _ Kris  _ if we have to. Someone will know what to do.”

Minseok nods against his shoulder, but it’s still a long time before either of them fall back to sleep.

⚙️🐹⚙️

The morning finds them side by side at the breakfast table, chairs close enough that their shoulders press together, gazing dully down at mugs of coffee that Minseok had somehow, with much cursing in several languages, gotten Jongdae’s long-neglected percolator to produce. Neither of them had slept well, Minseok waking twice more with nightmares— _ memories— _ of his own demise. 

So it’s understandable that when Jongdae’s phone vibrates on the table, they both scowl at it for the duration of two whole rings before Jongdae thumbs on the speaker.

“Jongdae!” His father’s voice is way too peppy. “Jason and his friends did some scouting over the Bleakbones last night. It looks like there was a monastery at the southern end but it’s abandoned now. Same with the nearby villages. In fact, any signs of life in those mountains are scarce and very small. Few plants can grow on such sheer rock, which means few animals can survive—but we did find a family of Ibex who cross through the range periodically.”

“Oh?” Jongdae sits up a little straighter in his chair, trading glances with a more-alert Minseok.

“Yes. They said there’s a peak towards the west that nannies teach their kids never to approach even though passing nearby would be more efficient. They believe climbing that particular peak is lethal—they call it ‘Scream Horn,’ in fact.”

“Please be careful,” Jongdae urges. “Minseok’s dreams—he says someone is making an army of big stone zombies. They steal hearts to power more stone soldiers.”

“Stealing hearts?” The archdruid’s voice is breathy and appalled. “No wonder the ibex are wary. But they say there are pikas all over the Scream Horn—cute little rabbity things—and they’re thriving there. So they must need hearts of a certain size for their geonecromancy to work. Or the place might be warded against larger creatures, if the name ‘Scream Horn’ is to be interpreted more literally.”

“There was an alarm,” Minseok blurts, sitting up suddenly. “When we got near the fortress. And it made all the stone zombies swarm to meet us.”

A siren rings in Jongdae’s head, too. “Min,” he breathes. “A hamster is smaller than a pika.”

Minseok immediately starts shaking his head. “No way. I am  _ not _ attempting to assassinate some evil geonecromancer as a tiny rodent.”

“But I promised,” Jongdae says. “I’d make you a suit. Would that work, Dad? If the suit is big but the living part of it is small? It would be just like a metal version of the stone zombies, then, right?”

There’s a pause for a moment, the only sounds that of moist chewing that is surely Jason enjoying some exotic fruit way too close to the phone.

“I can look into this. I will consult with the Sisters—they may know more about this type of warding than a simple druid.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Jongdae says, too sleepy to hide his relief.

The archdruid’s voice sounds a little thick when he responds. “You’re very, very welcome, Son.” 

⚙️🐹⚙️


	5. A Most Wanted Hamster

⚙️🐹⚙️

Leaving the magic-users to consult about magic things, Jongdae spends the next few days at his drafting table, sketching out hamaton ideas with Minseok wrapped around him, peering over his shoulder. The press of the hamshifter’s body against his back is more than a little distracting, but Minseok’s murmured ideas and suggestions thankfully keep Jongdae on track.

“So you’ll run in the wheel as needed to wind the mainspring, but you’ll be able to spend most of the time piloting rather than powering.”

“Yes, levers for all four feet would work, but I can also bite something with my mouth.”

“Oh, yes—let’s make that control a weapon, then—biting was your instinctive defense even just after you’d taken human form, so hopefully it’s something you’d be able to do automatically in a panic.” Jongdae turns his head to press his grin against Minseok’s cheek. “We should make it punch things, since that’s your instinctive reaction as a paladin.”

“Shut up,” Minseok laughs, turning his own head to kiss Jongdae properly. “You’re lucky I don’t still have hooves.”

“I am,” Jongdae agrees, wrenching his attention away from Minseok’s lips and back to the drawing in front of him. 

They go with a bipedal design under the logic that if they’re trying to slip past the wards and blend in, the hamaton should resemble the stone zombies as much as possible in form. Per Minseok’s memories, the zombies are about a head shorter than he was as a centaur, so the schematics detail a crudely-hominid mechanism about two and a half meters tall. To make such bulk light but still strong, Jongdae intends to take Uncle Wu up on his offer and have the half-giant shape mithril plating to exact specifications.

“They shattered my armor, though, Dae. And that was adamantine—mithril’s not even as tough,” Minseok frets.

“It shouldn’t need to be,” Jongdae reassures him. “The idea is to blend in, not punch your way through. And I’ll enclose your little ham-cockpit in the toughest thing we can find, so that even if your hamaton breaks, your own little body will still be protected.”

“My own little body is terrified,” Minseok mutters against the back of Jongdae’s shoulder. “Gods, Dae—to go back there  _ alone…” _

Jongdae’s heart squeezes so he twists around to get an arm around Minseok and squeeze him as well. “I hate the idea of sending you off by yourself, too, but you did things the big-guy brute force way before and we know that doesn’t work. Now we’re doing things the little-guy trickster way—not very paladinly, but Miss Taeyeon told you to use the resources you have  _ now, _ right? You may be going back small and alone but you won’t be going back unprepared or unarmed. Clever and fierce, remember?”

“Clever and fierce,” Minseok repeats. “What kind of cool weapons can I have besides punching?”

Jongdae grins. “What kind of cool weapons would you like?”

⚙️🐹⚙️

Chanyeol once again gapes at Jongdae and Minseok when they return to Borderline Bits, but this time it’s because of the growing mountain of specialist parts they’re piling on the sales counter. A fondly-smiling Sehun gently pushes the cambion’s lower jaw back up to meet the upper one, then elbows his friend aside to begin ringing everything up.

“Going full retro Neon Genesis, are we?” he asks, lifting a golden brow.

“That’s the plan,” Jongdae grins. “If you’ve got any other badass bits, we’re open to suggestions.”

“What exactly are you trying to do?”

“Just, you know, raid a fortress infested with an army of stone zombies, find the evil geonecromancer that’s been ripping hearts out of innocents in order to create them, and make him pay for those stolen lives plus murdering all my friends when they tried to stop him,” Minseok answers, tone much more flippant than Jongdae knows he feels.

Sehun laughs. “How exactly do you plan to find this geonecromancer among all of his creations?”

Minseok looks at Jongdae, who shrugs. “I guess I was sort of hoping you remembered where you found him last time?”

“I don’t think we did find him last time. We just saw all the zombies he’d created and all the ones he had yet to complete, waiting for more hearts.” Minseok shudders.

Chanyeol shakes himself free of his stupor. “You can have one of my compasses,” he offers. “I just made some new ones last week—my favorite got eliminated from Produce 101.”

At Jongdae’s furrowed brow, Sehun puts an arm around the bashful cambion. “He fills the needle housings with his tears,” the nephilim explains. “So they always point toward the nearest evil.” The nephilim gives Chanyeol a squeeze. “Honestly, it’s the only reason I let him watch that show—all the contestants are his favorite.” 

“They all work so hard,” Chanyeol explains, looking rather like he might tear up at the current moment.

Minseok still looks just as confused as Jongdae feels. “That’s, um. Really noble of you. But I don’t think it will help much when I’m surrounded by evil zombies.”

“Zombies aren’t truly evil,” Chanyeol says with a shake of his horned head. “Like Jongdae’s automata, they do what they’re programmed to do. It’s the maker that’s evil—the compass will only point towards sentient beings that harbor evil in their hearts.”

“Oh,” Jongdae says. “Then yes, please—we’d love to have a tool like that.”

“On the house,” Chanyeol says with a smile, reaching beneath the counter to produce a domed disk containing a golden needle lazily spinning in shimmering liquid. “Please don’t use it to assault strangers on the street—the cops are really cracking down on alignment-driven hate crimes.”

With a chorus of thank-yous, Jongdae and Minseok accept the help of the demihumans to load all their purchases onto the spring-driven cart Jongdae pulls from his backpack. Minseok looks impressed at the way the contraption unfolds from a tangle of titanium and carbon fiber into a sturdy four-wheeled wagon. He looks even more impressed when Jongdae shows him how to crank the handle to put tension into the mainspring, then use the squeeze brake to control the cart’s speed.

It takes Minseok a few minutes to get the hang of the rudder-style steering but soon he’s following the cart up the street at a brisk pace, using the long handle to deftly guide it from behind.

“You really are brilliant, Dae,” Minseok crows. “My hamaton is going to be  _ amazing.” _

⚙️🐹⚙️

Jongdae does his absolute best to make the hamaton amazing. For over a week, he spends long hours in the workshop carefully assembling everything according to his schematics, interrupted only by Minseok insisting Jongdae do things like eat, sleep, and continue to increase the former centaur’s bipedal boning experience. 

To refamiliarize himself with his rodent body and build his stamina, Minseok spends his time running in his wheel and climbing around his former enclosure while Jongdae works, only to transform at Jongdae’s side, naked and grinning, when he decides it’s time to have a bit of a break.

Even though Minseok (and his naked body) ensures that they fall asleep at a reasonable hour every night, they’re still a little sleep-deprived thanks to Minseok’s continuing nightmares. He hasn’t touched the mushrooms since that first dose but still he wakes up screaming at least once per night, and Jongdae hates that all he can do to help is hold him until he stops shaking.

“I don’t want to go back,” he whispers against Jongdae’s shoulder in the dark.

“I know, Min,” Jongdae murmurs. “I don’t want you to go back, either, but if you don’t do this, who else even could?”

“I know.” Minseok presses impossibly closer. “I know it’s my duty—why my soul couldn’t move on. And I’ll do it. But I still don’t want to leave you, Dae.” 

Thankfully, Minseok’s spirits are immensely boosted when the Sisters come by the workshop to inspect Jongdae’s work. They all agree that hamaton infiltration plan is workable, but more encouragingly, they offer to scry on Minseok the whole time he’s away.

“Of course you fear failure,” Miss Taeyeon says. “But most of your anxiety is that of once again falling without anyone knowing your fate. You must carry out your task as a solo mission, but you do not have to go  _ alone.” _

“Will you be watching, Dae?” Minseok asks, eyes big and brow furrowed.

“I’ll do whatever you need,” Jongdae says, trying for a reassuring smile even though the last thing he wants is to watch his boyfriend struggle somewhere far away, unable to help.

“The connection would be stronger if someone  _ intimately  _ acquainted with the subject’s soul were present,” Miss Tiffany says with a wink.

Minseok’s ears lift above those enthralling eyes, and thus Jongdae’s duty is sealed.

“We dare not enchant anything overmuch for fear the wards will detect the unexpected magic,” Miss Seohyun continues after wiggling elegant fingers over the framework of the tiny cockpit. “I have called the metal grains to perfect order to give it optimal strength, but we will not ward the suit or its pilot, nor will we enable a two-way connection. You must carry our encouragement with you and let the prickle of our scrying be reassurance that we’re watching over you.”

“Thank you, Noonas,” Minseok says, bowing his head in gratitude. “I will do everything I possibly can to triumph.”

But just in case he doesn’t, Minseok sets up an interview with Baekhyun, agreeing to tell him everything as long as the pixie doesn’t publish a word until after the infiltration has taken place. Baekhyun agrees readily, and when Minseok offers to let the pixie observe the infiltration along with the other members of their group, he does glittering backflips in midair. 

“It would be the highest honor to document your ordeal in real time!” he cheers. “But I will need an assistant. Someone who knows the value of preserving an accurate record of events. And someone big enough to carry my typewriter.”

Jongdae smiles. “I know an archivist that could help—he’s very particular about details.”

“Perfect,” Baekhyun says after arranging things with Luhan. “We’ll have a front-row seat to the making of history.”

⚙️🐹⚙️

On the day that history is to be made, an unlikely assortment of beings gathers at the base of the mountain the ibex call Scream Horn. Jongdae’s father and the Sisters get everything set up for the scrying and Baekhyun and Luhan unpack their documentation supplies while the rest of them take care of the hamaton and its pilot.

Kris and Tao have hauled Jongdae’s meticulously-built device to their staging area and they start winding the mainspring while Sehun and Chanyeol help Jongdae go through his final checks. The tinker goes over the hamaton with anxious eyes, terrified that he’d overlooked some detail, made some miscalculation, failed to assemble something in a way that will contribute to the death of the hamshifter he adores.

“It’s perfect, Jongdae,” Sehun assures him as Chanyeol nods encouragingly. “No one could have done better.”

Jongdae nods around the mass of terror in his throat.

When everything has been prepared, Jongdae squeezes Minseok tight for long moments, heartbeat to heartbeat, temple to temple, as if he could press what little courage he has into the bravest guy he’s ever met. He pulls away with wet eyes to give his boyfriend one last kiss for luck.

“Kick ass and come back to me,” Jongdae commands, voice only wavering a little bit.

“Yes, Sir,” Minseok responds with a watery smile and a paladin’s salute.

And then Jongdae’s blinking at a pile of his own clothing between his feet, bending down to assist the hamster attempting to crawl out of the neck of the hoodie he’d been wearing. He presses a kiss into soft orange fur, chuckling at the offended squeak this provokes. 

Minseok steps from Jongdae’s palm into Tao’s so the taller minotaur can lift him easily up to the opening in the back of the hamaton’s head, murmuring his own encouragements before securing the hatch. Jongdae doesn’t object at all when Tao hugs him from behind, watching over Jongdae’s head as the coolest thing he’s ever created marches up the mountain, carrying away the coolest guy he’s ever known.

“Less crying, more scrying,” Miss Tiffany says, tugging at Jongdae’s arm once the hamaton is out of sight.

So Jongdae swallows the last of his tears (and ignores those of the minotaur that have dripped into his hair) and turns his attention to the “scrying stone” which looks an awful lot like a crystal ball to Jongdae even though Miss Seohyun had scowled at him for calling it that. It’s set up on a low flattish rock near the path, placed like a lens in front of a solar-powered projector. The resulting beam of swirling light is focused on a reflective screen hanging from a tree branch Jongdae’s father had coaxed to just the right height.

Jongdae drops into the lotus pose in the soft grass behind the rock, leaning forward over the projector to wrap his hands around the sides of the glass-like scrying stone. His father sits behind him, Jason in his lap, and rests both hands on Jongdae’s shoulders, his thumbs pressed firmly but not uncomfortably against the nape of Jongdae’s neck. The Sisters fan out behind the archdruid, each resting a hand along his spine. 

Zitao and Kris sit together nearby, neither looking all that awkwardly oversized next to the other. Sehun and Chanyeol are also similarly situated, sitting back to back like a pair of otherworldly bookends. Baekhyun is perched on the carriage return of his typewriter, murmuring about having the most exclusive access to the story of the century. Luhan is nodding along beside him, reptilian tail curled around himself, scroll and quill held at the ready in taloned fingers.

Jongdae shakes his head, still baffled at the motley assembly, all of Minseok’s non-paladin resources—Jongdae’s friends?—gathered to observe and document the hamshifter’s mission. To that effect, Jongdae’s father starts murmuring chants in elvish—not because the language is any more magical than the common speech but because his father thinks it sounds more mystical that way—and the Sisters take up a counter-chant in some occult tongue that seems to slip away from Jongdae’s ears.

As instructed, Jongdae concentrates on Minseok, building a picture of the hamster in his mind. His velvety gray ears, the way his nose always wiggles, his soft orange fur, his bright button eyes. He adds details until it’s almost like he can see the hamster in front of him and then suddenly he can, the seeing stone (and the projection screen) displaying a close-up view of Minseok’s furry face, whiskers twitching with intense concentration.

“Zoom out,” Zitao laughs. “Nobody but your sappy ass wants to coo over the inside of Min-ge’s nostril.”

Jongdae huffs but does as requested, imagining watching Minseok from a few meters above the hamaton’s shoulder. The seeing stone refocuses, and there’s a satisfied murmur from the group as they watch the mechanical suit march up the mountain. 

It takes an hour before the fortress comes into view. Minseok’s speed increases when he sees his destination but then slows as he approaches, creeping cautiously across the uneven ground toward the base of the strangely-worked stone. Then he stops dead, making the panic rise in Jongdae’s throat at the thought that something’s wrong with Minseok or the hamaton.

Then he sees it. Or rather,  _ them. _

The mounds of rubble dotting the mountainside around the fortress aren’t natural geological features. They’re graves. Haphazard collections of rock and soil to cover over the remains of those whose bodies have been broken; whose hearts have been stolen.

It’s more and more obvious the longer Jongdae looks, able to see a hand poking out of one mound, a foot protruding from another. The exposed body parts are in various states of decay, including some that look alarmingly fresh. And many of them—way too many—are tragically small. 

The hamaton slowly resumes its approach, careful not to tread on any of the mounds as he makes his way toward the fortress. There’s a note of anger in his father’s chanting, sorrow in that of the Sisters. Even the silence of the rest of the observers is thick, as if they’re all gritting teeth along with Jongdae, holding back emotions in favor of concentration.

Jongdae really hopes his hamshifter is able to do the same.

He “zooms in” closer to the hamaton’s shoulder as Minseok passes under an archway and moves hesitantly along a wide hallway lined with oversized windows. Jongdae cringes in sympathy—it’s likely that centaur-Minseok had been flung through one of these very windows, and of course hamster-Minseok isn’t at all interested in repeating the experience. Not just because he doesn’t want to die, though of course that’s part of it. But as they were just gruesomely reminded, Minseok has a job to do. Justice to deliver.

The group gasps as two rough-hewn humanoids lumber into view, black stone bodies gleaming softly in the glow from the magelights lining the ceiling. Disturbingly, they do indeed have beating, fleshy hearts in the center of their chests, sending dull pulses of sickly green light skittering over their rocky forms. The same sickly green glows where their eyes would be, but even though their heads turn toward Minseok, they don’t otherwise react to his presence.

Eleven sets of lungs release a simultaneous sigh of relief. There’s some gentle giggling at the collective reaction as Minseok matches his movements to the zombies, following them on what appears to be some sort of patrol. He breaks off to lumber up a tightly-spiralling stairway that opens into yet another corridor, then pauses, presumably winding the mainspring a bit. He waits for another paired patrol to march by before falling into step behind them.

The zombies move slowly, and so does Minseok, making the infiltration a long, monotonous process. It would be downright boring except that Jongdae is constantly low-key afraid for Minseok’s life. It takes all day for the hamaton to march to the top of the fortress, and just as Jongdae is starting to fight the urge to drowse, everything happens all at once.

The hamaton exits yet another spiral staircase into yet another hallway—except this one quickly ends in a set of massive double doors. Minseok pauses for a good long time, probably ensuring the mainspring is wound tight. Then he yanks open one of the doors, startling a black-robed figure in the process of eating his dinner. The scrying doesn’t transmit sound but the guy is clearly screaming as he jumps out of his chair, knocking it over. Then the figure is knocked over as well when the hamaton points an arm at him and a beanbag full of buckshot catches the irate geonecromancer square in the chest.

The hamaton staggers with the recoil but Minseok catches himself in time to pivot and launch an entangling net at one approaching stone zombie, then he whirls around to spray the legs of another pair of zombies with instant epoxy. The group cheers with each successful maneuver and Jongdae’s grinning with pride that their new approach— _ if you can’t destroy them, don’t engage at all— _ is working so well.

But evidently two can play at the foe-hindering game because the geonecromancer is back up and shouting again, clutching his chest and gesturing at Minseok’s feet. The stone floor molds around the hamaton’s legs and then the injured geonecromancer makes a fist in the air, pulling his arm down sharply just before the seeing stone is obscured by falling stones and swirling dust.

“Minseok!” Jongdae shouts, forcing away the panic and concentrating hard on the tiny rodent he adores. The dust clears to reveal Minseok’s furry face, ears pinned back and mouth open in a silent squeak.

“Zoom out!” several frantic voices command.

Jongdae does, perspective swinging wildly before settling over the battered-but-mostly-intact hamaton. Two more zombies are struggling free from the rubble to join a third closing in on the immobilized device, and though Minseok manages to fling an arm up and glue the fallen rocks in place around the dusty pair, the other arm joint fails to operate correctly and the entangling net is merely fired at the rock-strewn floor.

There are gasps and yelps as the stone zombie merely marches over the useless tangle of rope. The noises of dismay are repeated with an added note of concern when one of the jets of two part-epoxy sputters and dies, coating the un-netted zombie with unhardened goo. But Minseok is indeed clever as well as fierce. The damaged hamaton suddenly skews to the side, tilting the stuck arm up level just as the zombie closes one rocky fist around the malfunctioning limb. The net fires, sending the zombie to the floor with the hamaton’s arm clutched in one flailing hand.

The cheers are cut off as the geonecromancer grabs a massive crystalline club from a cleft in the wall, somehow wielding the weapon with far more strength than the slight figure should seem to have. His face is twisted into a snarl as he strides forward, effortlessly bringing the club up and around with obvious intent to strike the hamaton’s already-dented head but Jongdae only smiles. As expected, the minute the geonecromancer steps into range a puff of dust explodes from the hamaton’s chest, completely engulfing the stomping figure.

When it clears, the geonecromancer is crumpled to the floor in a heap of robes. The hamaton is down, too, the suddenly-directionless club having careened into one of the stone-mired legs, breaking it off and toppling the mechanism for good. The hatch on the back of the device’s head pops open and Jongdae suddenly thinks of his father, whose chanting falters slightly at seeing his own face on the projection screen.

“Go back, go back,” Zitao demands through laughter. “You humans are so weird about nudity!”

_ “Half- _ human,” Jongdae clarifies, smiling when his father’s hands briefly squeeze his shoulders a little tighter.

He concentrates on Minseok again, this time calling to mind his handsome humanoid face. There’s a cheer when it flickers into focus, then laughter when Jongdae zooms out slowly until he’s sure his boyfriend has pulled on the track suit stuffed into the hamaton for just such a purpose. 

Minseok is frowning, lips shaping soundless words as he swats at a bipedal creature the size of a half-grown kitten. It’s dressed in a miniature version of the geonecromancer’s robes and it’s clinging to Minseok’s arm, evidently attempting to prevent him from using the knife he’s swiped from the unconscious villain’s dinner table.

Whatever Minseok is saying makes the tiny little man go limp, dropping from the hamshifter’s arm to huddle forlornly on the dusty stone floor. Minseok crouches by the misfired net, slicing single ropes free of the tangle. He keeps glancing at the sad little thing, still evidently talking to it as he ties up the unconscious geonecromancer, gags the villain with a table napkin, and heaves him up over his shoulder.

The tiny guy’s demeanor gradually brightens and soon he scampers out the door into the hall ahead of Minseok, preceding him down the spiral staircase. The watching group holds a collective breath as a patrolling pair of stone zombies turns toward Minseok and his burden, dull glowing eyes brightening, but the little man skips toward them, hopping around and gesturing, and they return to their plodding patrol much to everyone’s relief.

“If that little creature can call the zombies off, I’ll go help Min-ge carry that murdering asshole to justice,” Tao says, standing up. “He’s a sturdy little hammy, but that’s a tall fortress atop a tall mountain and anyone would get tired.”

“I’ll go with you,” Kris says. “We can trade off.”

“I’m going, too,” Jongdae says, giving his dad a thankful hug before hurrying to join the taller pair.

“Uh, no offense, Jongdae, but you’re not exactly built for lugging an angry prisoner down a mountain,” Kris says, leaning a bit away from him as if he fears the half-elf’s reaction.

“I’m not going to carry that mass-murdering asshole, I’m going to carry Minseok.” He rolls his eyes at their lifted brows. “As a hamster. Even an elf is strong enough to carry a rodent.”

“Ah, of course,” Tao says, turning on the flashlight function of his smartphone. 

He politely refrains from pointing out that either of them could have also carried the hamster down the mountain, a fact that Jongdae appreciates. Minseok is  _ his _ hamster, and Jongdae is determined to be as supportive a boyfriend as possible, even if that means literally supporting Minseok’s body after an exhausting day.

⚙️🐹⚙️

Jongdae can see better in the dark than either of his companions thanks to his father’s blood and it’s hard not to run off ahead in his haste to see Minseok safe, to have him in his arms. But Tao keeps hold of the hood of Jongdae’s sweatshirt, dulling his haste by mentioning that the three of them don’t have the little zombie-commanding creature with them so they don’t want to reach the fortress before Minseok and his odd little companion have made their way out. Plus Jongdae doesn’t really want to hike through a graveyard alone in the dark.

But as soon as Jongdae sees movement near the shadowed fortress—something struggling, something bouncing—he throws his arms up and his body down, slithering out of his sweatshirt and bolting toward his brave, resourceful boyfriend. 

Away from the beaming smartphones Jongdae can see just well enough to avoid twisting an ankle or stumbling into a ravine. He’s drawn forward by the stumbling silhouettes, the sounds of voices. Then there’s Minseok’s gasp of surprise, the thud of a body lowered to the ground, a tired chuckle, the scent of sweat and Jongdae’s own bodywash as Jongdae buries his face against Minseok’s neck, the way Minseok squeezes Jongdae in return before drooping in his arms like a marionette with cut strings.

“So many bodies, Dae,” he mourns. “I was such a coward—I should have been here sooner. Some are only days old. I failed them, Dae.”

Jongdae squeezes him tighter. “Min, you literally came back from the dead by forming a body from a piece of your very soul. You went from a hamster with no memories to a conquering hero in less than six months. It’s not like you’ve been on vacation or something. How are you giving yourself a hard time about this?”

“Because I’m here and alive and I have you and they’re cold and in heaps that aren’t even proper graves.”

“We’ll make sure they’re given proper respectful interments. Plaques and everything. You did everything you could.”

“It doesn’t feel like enough.” Minseok’s voice sounds small and defeated despite the successful mission.

“That’s because despite what happened last time, you still have a paladin’s heart,” Jongdae murmurs fondly. “But you’ve worked your body to exhaustion—just shift and I’ll carry you. Tao and Kris are right behind me to take care of your burden.”

A moment later he’s digging a hamster out of a pile of sweats, picking up the abandoned clothes as well, throwing them over his shoulder to free both hands to cradle Minseok close to his chest. Minseok squeaks at him, licks his thumb, then his little body goes limp in Jongdae’s palms as he succumbs to fatigue.

Jongdae shakes his head at himself. Not very romantic to only be able to carry his boyfriend around when he’s in a form that limits the romance to thoughts and feelings rather than physical fun. Still, he’s happy to be able to do even this little thing for their conquering hero.

“Whoa,” a little voice says. “That shapeshifting stuff is  _ freaky.” _

Jongdae turns to eye the little robed creature, who stares back at Jongdae with big eyes filled with curiosity rather than malice. Up close the little guy is actually quite cute, Jongdae’s elf eyes enabling him to make out the handsome features on the reddish-gray face. So Jongdae swallows back a retort about how weird little men found in evil geonecromancers’ towers probably shouldn’t be casting stones about what’s  _ freaky. _ Instead, he offers the little thing a small smile.

“Uh, hi. Thanks for helping Minseok. I’m really glad he’s safe. He really means a lot to me.”

The little guy nods, then his shoulders droop. “I don’t mean anything to anyone except for Master Do, and Minseok said he’s mean and should be punished.”

“Oh,” Jongdae says, unsure how to react. “I’m… sorry?”

“He  _ is  _ mean,” the tiny man admits. “He’s even mean to me. And he  _ made _ me. With his own blood. So I’m probably mean, too.” He hangs his head.

Jongdae suppresses a coo at how cute the little guy is. “I don’t think you’re mean,” Jongdae says. “What’s your name?”

“Nini when I’m good and helpful, Jongin-you-dirt-clod when I’m not.”

Yeesh—that definitely seems to qualify as mean. Poor little guy. 

“I’ll call you Nini then. My name is Jongdae.”

Nini nods. “I know. Minseok talked about you.”

Jongdae’s eyebrows lift. “He did?”

The little guy nods some more. “He said Jongdae was his boyfriend, Jongdae would be very worried, Jongdae made the shiny monster suit, Jongdae is a genius, Jongdae’s really cute, Jongdae, Jongdae, Jongdae.”

Jongdae can’t help but smile. “Oh. Well. I am his boyfriend, I was worried, and I did make the suit. But I don’t know about all that other stuff.”

“You are really cute.”

The smile spreads into a grin. “Thanks. You are, too.”

Nini tilts his tiny head. “I am?”

“Yeah, dude. You’re adorable.”

“Hooray!” Nini does a little dance around Jongdae’s feet, pausing by the trussed-up geonecromancer to kick him in the knee. “Take that, you mean meanie!” He puts his thumbs in his ears, waggles his fingers, and blows a raspberry.

The geonecromancer glares, growling around the napkin in his mouth.

Nini darts away with a shriek, hiding behind Jongdae’s calf. Then he shrieks again, clutching Jongdae’s leg as Kris and Tao come into view.

“Those guys are my friends,” Jongdae assures the trembling little creature. “The gray one’s Kris, the yellow one is Tao. They’re going to carry your former master down the mountain so he can answer for his crimes.”

Kris and Tao both wave hellos at Jongdae and the little creature before the minotaur hauls the still-growling geonecromancer up over his shoulder.

“Oh. Is Minseok my master now? Or is it you?” Nini asks, trotting along beside Jongdae as they start back down the mountain.

“Er, neither of us? You don’t actually need a master. You can, you know. Do your own thing.”

“But I am not my own thing. I am  _ his _ thing. I’m made with his blood.”

If anyone knows the conundrum of being made with blood that they may or may not be proud of at any given time, it’s Jongdae. “Look, Nini. Most living things are made with blood, okay? And we don’t typically get to choose whose blood we’re made from. Sometimes the family you’re born into—the ones you’re made from—are great. And sometimes it’s better to find your own family that has nothing to do with blood, okay? You’ll share a heart, and that’s more important.”

“Truth,” Zitao agrees. “I loved the paladins like brothers. I still love Min-ge like a bro, no matter what shape he’s in.” He smiles down at the sleeping hamster.

“Oh,” Nini says. “You do not have the same blood. But you are fam-ill-ee?”

“Yep,” the minotaur confirms, smiling down at Nini, too.

“Jongdae and I don’t share blood, either,” Kris adds. “But we’re family, too, right bro?”

“Er, sure,” Jongdae agrees. Once someone’s nana has cried on you, it would be rude to deny the connection.

The little guy is silent for the rest of their journey down the mountain except for murmuring a thank-you to Tao after he hands the geonecromancer off to Kris and scoops up Nini instead, having pity on his tiny legs. So everyone who went up the mountain to meet Minseok is carrying someone in their arms as they reunite with the rest of the group.

There’s lots of cheering and shouting, rousing the hamster enough to shift back into human form behind a convenient bush and pull his clothes back on to join in the hugging and thanking going on. Nini jumps from Tao’s shoulder to Jongdae’s when the minotaur starts chatting with the nephilim about bar magnets. 

“Master Do was right about one thing,” Nini says. “People who aren’t made of stone are  _ loud _ and  _ messy.” _

Jongdae snorts, but he doesn’t have time for any other response before Baekhyun flits up in front of them, looking like a disco firefly with several glow bracelets criss-crossed over his torso like loose-fitting luminous bandoliers.

“Oh my shimmering wings, Jongdae! Who is this adorable little guy?”

“Er, this is Nini,” Jongdae says, a little confused. “You saw Minseok find him in the fortress?”

“Of course I did, but it’s a little rude to call him hey-you-fortress-guy and I didn’t know his name,” Baekhyun scolds. “Besides, always open with a compliment, Jongdae. Then people will be predisposed to like you, and if they like you, they’re predisposed to answer all your questions so you can write the best news articles.”

“I’ll remember that,” Jongdae says. “Are you here to interview Nini for your expose?”

Baekhyun nods. “But also to make friends, because us little guys have to stick together.” His wings flutter as he executes an elaborate midair bow that has his glow bracelets flipping up and threatening to slide off his tiny frame if not for the pixie’s rapid reflexes. “Byun Baekhyun, at your service, Nini. If you’re not comfortable being interviewed now—and I don’t blame you, it’s been a long day for everyone—may I have your contact information so I can ask you later?”

“Contact information?” Nini asks, looking at Jongdae for help.

“Yeah, like, where you live, how to get ahold of you.”

“I live in the Stronghold of Stony Solitude,” Nini answers. “But then Minseok would have gotten smushed if I didn’t help him get out. And then I got carried down the mountain, and I don’t really want to walk all the way back up and I don’t really want to live all alone in the Stronghold, anyway. And whenever Master Do wanted to get ahold of me he’d just grab me around the middle or by the scruff of my robes or something.”

Baekhyun’s eyes have slowly transformed from sparkly and bright to soft and watery. “You mean you’re homeless? And a domestic abuse survivor?”

Nini looks at Jongdae again. “I don’t know all those words,” he stage-whispers. “I think I’m Jongin-you-dirt-clod again.”

“Never,” Jongdae dismisses. “You’re always Nini, even if you don’t know something. You have a good heart, okay? Don’t let anyone call you a dirt clod.”

Tears are streaming down Baekhyun’s face. “You  _ poor little thing!” _ he wails. “You can live with me—us. The wife and I have always wanted kids but she’s a sprite, you know, these things don’t happen naturally. So we always planned to adopt, maybe a sylph or a nymph but  _ you _ are the  _ cutest little thing _ and I know she’ll just love you. We’ll be the cutest little family.”

“Fam-ill-ee?” Jongin says, perking up. “Jongdae, is this finding my own fam-ill-ee?”

Jongdae can’t help but grin. “Yeah, little dude. I think it is.”

⚙️🐹⚙️

Minseok sleeps for almost eighteen hours when they finally get home but as soon as he wakes he wants to find his family, too. Tao had been the one to go down the emergency contact list when the Guardians of the Tree hadn’t returned and he’d been able to provide Minseok with his parents’ phone number. Holding Jongdae’s hand tightly, Minseok sets up a video call, figuring the only way his family is going to believe he’s alive—albeit in a different form—is to see him face to face.

There’s a lot of crying and questioning over his miraculous reincarnation, gasping and fretting when he explains he’d helped bring in the geonecromancer they’d probably seen on the news, cooing and teasing when he turns the phone to introduce Jongdae, and of course, demands for him to come home to them.

“I’ll come for a visit—I can’t wait to see you all again in person,” Minseok agrees. “But my new body is so tiny compared to before. It would be awkward and difficult for me to live with you again.”

There’s some arguing about that because of course Minseok’s family wants him close where they can fuss over him but Minseok deflects all demands by arranging a time and place to meet. They choose a family park on the outskirts of the city with enough open space for a herd of centaurs to crowd around an emotional hamshifter and a rather intimidated half-elf.

“Uncle Minseok!” 

The joyful squeal is all the warning they get before Minseok is all but tackled by a young centaur almost as tall as he is. He manages to brace himself and catch the charging youngster with a grunt, hugging his humanoid torso in place while his back end continues to prance.

“Uncle, your ears sure look funny! Mama says I shouldn’t say anything mean about them, though, because it’s not your fault you only have two legs now.”

“Uh, thanks,” Minseok laughs. “I missed you, Daeullie.”

“I missed you, too! Mama and Grandma cried a  _ lot _ while you were gone.”

“I bet they did,” Minseok responds, looking over Daeul’s shoulder to meet his sister’s gaze. “Hi, Mingsoonie.”

“Minseokkie,” she sobs, and then she’s got her brother in her arms, his feet dangling a good quarter meter off the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, voice muffled by her shoulder.

“Sorry for what? Being brave and noble? Being stubborn enough to return from the dead? For finishing what you started, making the world a safer place for my baby? You dummy, what do you have to be sorry for?”

“Lots of things,” Minseok laughs through tears as Minsoo sets him down. “Being shorter than my sister, for one.”

“You were taller for the first quarter-century of my life. It’s my turn,” she asserts. “Besides, your genius boyfriend can just make you another suit. He probably prefers you closer to his own height most of the time, anyway. He  _ surely  _ prefers you with two legs instead of four.”

Jongdae chuckles, feeling his face heat. “Minseok was very handsome as a centaur. But he fits in my apartment a little better like this.”

“I bet he fits better—”

Minseok claps a hand over his sister’s mouth.  _ “Okay, _ there, Soonie, not in front of the foal.”

“What about the foal?” Daeul canters back over from where he’d been chatting with Tao. 

“He’s very cute,” Minseok answers.

Daeul narrows his eyes. “Were you talking about gross grownup stuff?”

Minseok affects an ashamed expression. “Sorry, Daeullie.”

“You better be. Grandma won’t let you eat at the Chuseok table if you have a muckmouth.”

“Indeed,” a mature female voice agrees, announcing the arrival of someone who must be Minseok’s mother.

Minseok confirms this by rushing into her embrace with a cry of “Mom.” The pair start apologizing to each other and Minsoo rolls her eyes fondly before turning them on Jongdae.

“So. You’re the badass boyfriend. We just met but I already like you way better than anyone else he’s ever dated.”

Jongdae rubs the back of his neck. “Uh. Thanks.”

“No, thank  _ you. _ For taking such good care of my brother. He looks so good. Tiny, but good.” She laughs. “And he looks at you like you’re made of apples and sugar.”

Blood rushes into Jongdae’s cheeks. “Well. I think he’s very sweet, too.”

“He is. Also really, really dorky.”

Jongdae snorts. “Yeah, but I like that about him. It means I can be dorky, too.”

“See, you’re perfect for each other. Welcome to the family, Jongdae.” She bends to offer a hug.

“Thanks,” Jongdae says, stepping into the embrace. 

It’s a little weird to go from having all but zero family bonds to having what feels like half a dozen different families, but it’s not in the least the most unusual change Minseok’s wrought in his life. And, like every other way in which falling in love with a hamshifter has altered his existence, it’s a welcome change.

⚙️🐹⚙️

Minseok can’t stop smiling on the train home, squeezing Jongdae’s hand and occasionally turning the grin directly at him. And Jongdae, of course, can’t help but smile back. His stomach churns a little the closer they get to the little box waiting on the drafting table, and by the time they’ve entered the apartment, shed their shoes, and padded into the workshop, Jongdae can taste his own nerves at the back of his throat.

“Min,” he says, picking up the little brass box. “You once pointed out that I expected too little of people. And that was true, mostly because I didn’t want anyone to expect too much of me. But you are so, so brave, so strong—in mind and body and especially in spirit. And you love me. It makes me want to be the best version of myself, not in some stupid attempt to be worthy of you or your love—I know that’s not how it works. But because we don’t all get a second chance at life, so I want to try to live the best one possible the first time around.”

He hands Minseok the box, metal surface now warmed by Jongdae’s hands. “And my best life includes you. I’m asking you to stay with me. Be my love, for as long as this life lets us.”

Minseok doesn’t even look at the box in his hands. Instead, his wide dark eyes are fastened on Jongdae’s. “And do you expect me to agree?”

“Yes,” Jongdae says, lips tugging into a smile and anxiety draining away as he realizes it’s true. “Of course you’ll stay. You love me.”

“I do,” Minseok says, setting the box back on the table in favor of cradling Jongdae’s face for a kiss. “Of course I’ll stay. I expect that you love me, too.”

“I do,” Jongdae says, smiling into another kiss. “I expect I always will.”

“Good,” Minseok says, and for several long moments after that they demonstrate their love with lips and tongues and wandering hands.

A stray thought manages to push through the makeout-induced haze and Jongdae pulls away. “Wait,” he says. “You’re not even gonna look in the box?”

“You don’t need to bribe me to stay with you, you dork.”

“It’s not a bribe,” Jongdae laughs. “It’s sort of a celebration. For both of us.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, and I worked really hard on it, you jerk, so open it up and appreciate it already.”

Minseok laughs. “Maybe encouraging you to expect things from people was a mistake.” 

But Minseok says this as he turns to the brass box, pressing the button on the lid and humming appreciatively as the lid retracts on its own once the latch holding the box closed is released. And then he just stares, blindly reaching for Jongdae who lets himself be caught and drawn to Minseok’s side.

“Dae,” Minseok says. “These are compasses? Or are they watches?”

“Both,” Jongdae grins. His mechanical creations have the standard hour, minute, and second hand, but above those is a fourth needle of fine filigree, one end silver, the other copper.

“But the red needles are pointing at each other.”

“Exactly,” Jongdae says, taking one out of the box and fastening the sturdy leather strap around Minseok’s wrist. When he looks up from his task, Minseok’s eyes are soft.

“Dae,” he says again. “You made us compasses that point at each other.”

“I did,” Jongdae nods. “The watch is all mechanical, of course, but even if you forget to wind it the compass will always work. They’re based on an enchanted pair of lodestones that Sehun managed to find for me.”

Jongdae picks up the other watch, moving it around so Minseok can see that the copper ends of both needles always point directly towards each other. “No matter what happens, no matter where you are, I will always be able to find you. And you’ll always be able to find your way home to me.”

Still staring at the watches, Minseok uses his bare arm to gently punch Jongdae in the ribs. “You are ridiculously sappy,” he says. His voice is a little unsteady, unlike his fingers, which deftly fasten the second watch around Jongdae’s wrist.

“You love my sap,” Jongdae asserts.

“Shut up and kiss me,” Minseok demands, but he does it with a smile, leaning close to press it against Jongdae’s own grin.

⚙️🐹⚙️

Unsurprisingly, they don’t stop with a little kissing. It’s not long before they’re naked, hard, and moaning into each other’s mouths, Jongdae’s fingers wrapped around Minseok’s cock, Minseok’s fingers buried in Jongdae’s ass. Minseok’s tail is lifted high, jutting out at a right angle to the rest of his spine and Jongdae wraps his fingers around that, too, swallowing the resulting low groan with a grin. He tugs gently at Min’s tail and firmly at his cock until Minseok’s groan becomes more of a growl and the fingers in his ass curve as one to apply pressure right where Jongdae’s most sensitive.

It’s Jongdae’s turn to groan, Minseok’s wicked chuckle music to his ears. He teases Jongdae with one more finger for a few deliciously agonizing moments, the prostate stimulation keeping him lit up from groin to toenails.

“Min,” Jongdae moans, a bit of whine creeping in. “Min, c’mon. Fuck me.”

“Yeah, Dae,” Minseok fairly purrs, withdrawing his fingers and lining himself up. “Gonna fuck you so well. Gonna make you come so hard on my cock.”

He lives up to that declaration, pushing in and pausing for only a moment before pulling Jongdae’s hips higher into his lap and setting a steady pace that ensures the thick head of his cock is always sliding against Jongdae’s prostate in one direction or the other. 

“Min!” It’s almost too much and Jongdae fists the sheets, spine humming with sparks. “Min, fuck me—fuck me just like this ‘til I come.”

Minseok does, more delighted, depraved laughter bouncing into Jongdae’s ears as his hips piston away. It takes a good several minutes of the near-constant stimulation but suddenly Jongdae’s jackknifing up off the bed, body hinging hard around his core as everything coalesces to erupt along with a yell that might have been an attempt at Minseok’s name.

“Oh, good job, Dae,” Minseok pants. “You came so hard on my cock.”

“So hard,” Jongdae agrees, so covered with sweat and come that he’s not sure which is which and doesn’t particularly care. His bones are jelly, his ass is still humming with Minseok’s thrusts and he opens heavy eyes to smile, slow and sated, up at his beautiful boyfriend.

“Come in me, Minseokkie,” he invites, licking his lips and trapping the lower one between his teeth.

Minseok’s hips stutter and he presses deep, grinding so tight against Jongdae’s ass that the sweat between their skin feels like glue. And even as he does it Jongdae knows it’s entirely inappropriate, but his fingers move on their own and he doesn’t really want to stop them. Because as Minseok approaches his climax, his ears lift up and back and his eyes flutter closed, his mouth drops open slightly to reveal his upper incisors and his nose crinkles as his entire body tenses before his release. 

And yes, Minseok is the hottest guy Jongdae has ever had the pleasure of pressing his lips against much less getting naked with. And yes, Jongdae just came harder than he probably ever has thanks to Min’s gorgeous cock and his springy abs and strong thighs. But his hamster is just so damn  _ cute _ in that moment, adorable layered over sexy, and Jongdae can’t resist reaching up to tap Minseok’s scrunched-up hammy nose.

“Boop,” Jongdae chirps as he does so.

Minseok’s eyes fly open, face distorting away from ecstasy and into confusion.

“Huh?” he grunts, tilting his head as he blinks down at Jongdae.

And Jongdae bursts out laughing at Minseok’s entirely befuddled face. He laughs so hard he’s not making anything more than a clicking sound in the back of his throat but that’s fine because Minseok’s making enough noise for both of them, wailing his pleasure as Jongdae’s rhythmically bouncing torso transfers waves of tightness and vibration to the cock inside him.

The half-elf is still giggling when Minseok’s cries of ecstasy become pants and when Jongdae opens his eyes the hamshifter is looking down at him with a  _ very _ judging look.

“What the hell, Dae?”

Jongdae’s snickering renews.

Minseok scowls. “Did you seriously just boop my nose right when I was about to come?”

Jongdae’s chuckles increase back to breathlessness and tears prick the corners of his eyes.

“Why, exactly?”

“Y-your face,” Jongdae gasps. “So…  _ cute.” _

Minseok’s brows furrow more dramatically but he’s hiding a smile. “There’s something wrong with you, Dae,” he pronounces.

He pulls out, chuckling himself when Jongdae’s laughter truncates in a whine.

“You love me,” Jongdae asserts, confident as always in his boyfriend’s adoration.

“I do,” Minseok admits, pulling Jongdae into his arms. “My troll of a tinker.” He tangles their legs together. “You love me, too.”

“I do,” Jongdae agrees, sweeping sweaty orange bangs away from Minseok’s face. “My hero of a hamster.” He leans in to claim a lingering kiss.

“Flattery is not going to get you out of a shower and a sheet change.”

“Damn.”

⚙️🐹⚙️

The geonecromancer’s trial is an open-and-shut case. There’s way too much evidence against him, and with Minseok’s and Nini’s sworn testimony as witnesses, there’s no doubt he’d had his stone zombies harvest the hearts of the centaur and his comrades. Not to mention those of the barely-hidden remains of four villages and a monastery just outside the fortress. It’ll take a while to exhume and identify all the bodies, but any that go unclaimed by next of kin are to be reburied with full rites and proper markers, paid for by the sale of the geonecromancer’s worldly goods.

It’s not like he’ll need any of it, given the hundreds of life sentences he’ll be serving in a magically secured prison cell.

Jason and his friends find the remains of the Guardians of the Tree scattered all down the mountain, something particularly eerie for Minseok to think about. Thankfully, Tao takes it upon himself to have what’s left of Min’s former body cremated and the three of them go one sunny day in August to scatter the ashes in a pretty meadow where they can help the flowers grow. They’d elected not to invite Minseok’s family (or even tell them it was happening) since they’d already mourned and buried their loved one once.

When the last of the ashes have been given back to the earth, Minseok stands there in silence, flanked by Jongdae and Tao.

“I’m glad we did this so I could have closure,” Minseok says after a while. “But it’s creepy as fuck so let’s never speak of this again, okay?”

“A-fucking-men,” Tao agrees. “Let’s go see if your alcohol tolerance in this body is as good as it was in the old one.”

Jongdae can’t help but grin at the way Minseok’s face lights up with curiosity.

Turns out a hamshifter’s liver is much smaller than a centaur’s, so several hours later, Jongdae has the distinct pleasure of wrangling a very floppy, very giggly Minseok home and putting him to bed. 

Then he has the less distinct pleasure of nursing him through a wicked hangover the next morning, but lessons were learned. And Tao, having been apprenticed to Jongdae’s dad for several weeks, is more than happy to show off his growing skills by making his Min-ge a nasty herbal concoction that does a surprisingly good job at relieving the hamshifter’s suffering.

Thanks to Baekhyun’s detailed expose—”Murder on the Mountain!” had been the headline—Jongdae has had a  _ lot _ of interest in his work. He tells everyone the same thing—he won’t equip any of his creations with lethal weaponry and that buyers must sign a contract agreeing not to modify anything post-purchase to be used for assault rather than infiltration. Even so, the Tinkers’ Guild registers him as a platinum-tier member in good standing and Jongdae proudly displays their plaque of endorsement at his new shop.

It’s a cute little place just down the street from Tails, Toes, and Snouts and it’s set up in a similar way with a sales floor, a back room where he can work on his creations, and a cozy apartment upstairs. Minseok gets his license as a private investigator and operates out of their shop as well, figuring that if he and Jongdae could uncover the former centaur’s story, they could probably work together to solve other situations. Minseok likes to tease Jongdae that he has his own personal “Q” so he may as well be a Hollywood spy. He scowls when Jongdae calls him a hamsnooper but laughs when Jongdae alters the words of a cartoon theme song and sings about Hamspector Gadget.

Minseok always wears the compass-watch Jongdae made, even in hamster form—he wears it around his waist. Especially when he’s on a surveillance job or anything else that means Minseok has to stay out all night, Jongdae takes great comfort in looking at his own compass needle. He knows it will always point to the one who has his heart, and the other half of the enchanted lodestone will always guide his heart home.

⚙️🐹⚙️


End file.
